Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council 1/22/2026 Retreat, Thursday, January 22, 2026

Date: Thursday, January 22, 2026
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 5h 37m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/ttqxnszwm8

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-17. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] Mayor Davis Younger, Vice Mayor Wolf, Council Member Smith, here. Council Member Alcina, here. Council Member Ellis, here. Council Member Hudson, here. Council Member Vasquez, one, one, two. All right, thank you. Can you go over and welcome other housekeeping stuff?

[00:00:19] Yeah, absolutely. Good morning, members of council. If you need it, there is Wi-Fi. When you log into your phone or tablet, go to Mason as the Wi-Fi. it'll walk you through the the login process you don't need any special credentials to restrooms are out in the hallway uh men is across the hall women is closer to us when we go out here snacks and food are out in the hallway as well does anyone have any other general questions hopefully everybody parked at the aquapon lot across from here that's where we are supposed to

[00:00:57] parking the food was based on staff and counsel we there may be extra but we had to order through new contractors and we had to give them so don't know that we

[00:01:37] would have extra there might be but most all of you have talked with elder already. He also has Dr. Andrea Davis, and they are here to talk through team building for the city. No relation.

[00:01:59] No. Didn't even think of that. On the record. Yeah, on the record. Good stuff. Welcome. Thank you. Alright, we good? So, good morning. We can do better than that.

[00:02:17] This is going to be a long day. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for, as we say, the military protocol has been established, so now we can begin the process. I'd like to welcome the guests in the room as well, although you may not be participating, but again, as we go through this process, it was really designed for the council and the governing body.

[00:02:41] So comments, we won't pull those out, but during breaks, if you have questions for us, we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. So, welcome to the leadership and really the team building. My name is Alfred Andrew, and this is Dr. Andrea Davis, and we'll go over some interviews here shortly.

[00:02:59] But just really wanted to give you a sense of today's agenda. We'll do a quick introduction of who we are, how we got to be here. We'll talk about some session agreements. We always think it's important. I don't believe in the concept of ground rules, because we're not giving it on adults, right?

[00:03:18] so let's come to some common agreements among ourselves in terms of how we're going to conduct ourselves and also how we engage then we'll talk about the agenda for the day and then we'll ask you to introduce yourselves and get so we get a better sense of who you are i know i've had an opportunity to work with the city in the past and a number of different efforts one of them meaning the equity inclusion task force a number of years ago and i've also done some work with the HR office and then we'll just have an opportunity to start to get engaged and have a little bit of fun there'll be some games some group activities conversations but we're here to have an opportunity

[00:03:55] to talk about how we build an effective team all right well good morning everyone no i have not had the opportunity to meet you all like al here uh has but it is a pleasure to be in the room with all of you my name is dr andrea davis please feel free to call me andrea and i am the chief social scientists with ALD and associate. Just a little hopefully not so boring bit about my background, my doctorate is in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of Florida. I spent my formative

[00:04:32] years after graduate school initially working for the federal government in different agencies like the Department of Justice, the United States Census Bureau, and USAID before transitioning into really working with AL. We've been working here together now for the last, what has it been, five years, five, six years now? It's been a wild road, but a great time. With ALD, I help to not only do our curriculum development and training and things like that, but also help

[00:05:06] our clients with their research needs data science needs and and things like that really just helping to build organizational and group capacity i've had the wonderful privilege of working with school districts with universities with our federal government clients state local government clients and so on just again doing different types of initiatives to build capacity within the organization so i am excited to be here today and yes uh i'll turn it over to el thank you so

[00:05:40] again alfranda was my father's poor sense of humor right um my father when he named me my mother said you cannot call him junior you have to give my baby a normal name so my father was sitting there and he was just playing with it and he said alfranda that's it now not knowing his spanish a at the end of the name is so i was getting stuff in high school miss alfranda dirty i'm like why why are they calling me this i'm getting emails at work thank you and not understanding that but

[00:06:16] my father's name is and um he was named by his sister classy because he was number 10 out of 11 kids but i just wanted but just for the sake of as we move forward today please call me al All right, so a little bit about me. Funny story. I went to college in Washington State. I went to Washington State University. I had an opportunity to participate in athletics. I played basketball and I ran track. Let me rephrase that. I sat at the bench in basketball and I ran track. And graduated,

[00:06:52] worked in juvenile justice for a number of years as a juvenile parole officer, supervising level three sex offenders. Did really well at that and they said we're going to promote you now you need to to supervise juvenile murderers. Had an opportunity to serve on the Governor's Council for Juvenile Justice Reform.

[00:07:08] Worked here with now Patty Murray, Senator Patty Murray, as well as the next governor many years ago, Christine Gregoire. We did a lot of great work with the Police Academy, did a number of years there as a program manager for corrections and did all the EO and diversity and leadership training for the Criminal Justice Training Commission.

[00:07:28] Fast forward to 2011, well, 9-11, as a commission officer, I felt obligated to go back and serve. So as a captain, I went back, became the head of recruiting for the state of Washington Army National Guard, and an opportunity to then come here and work in D.C. at the Pentagon for a number of years.

[00:07:49] I actually did 12 years of active duty before I retired in 13, then went on to do my civilian stuff in the same capacity. And in about 2019, one of the generals, after my training, said, you know, you're probably good. You need to take this on the road. So I resigned about six months later and started home with this.

[00:08:07] So with that said, when we talk about team building, I think about some of the experience that I had both as an athlete, as a member of the military, and also working within the community. And I understand the importance of that.

[00:08:23] When I was in college, even though I didn't play a lot on the court, I was someone who ran a lot of basketball camps and worked with kids and had a chance to coach. At the college, at the collegiate level, but I had to turn it down because I had to go and do my military service, but I did coach at a high school, and that was where the concept of team building really, really kind of exploded from.

[00:08:52] It was 1986, and I coached a team of 9th and 10th graders. I was the assistant head coach, and I coached the JV team, and it was a pretty decent team, you know, because pretty much, if you look at Seattle, we had, by capita, the most number players in the NBA than any other city in the world. So I'm sitting there and I get these kids and I'm pretty good at fighting talent. And we played a team from Easton, Washington where the schools over there were a little bit smaller so the kids were older. So they were like 11.

[00:09:26] And when we went into the game, we just got massacred. We lost 109 to 13. I was devastated. Yeah, it makes the side effects. Wow. Right? So I'm sitting there and part of my upbringing in the board of sports, it's like we punished those because they didn't work hard.

[00:09:50] So we, you know, I could have done a couple things. I could have had what we call bucket drills. Anybody ever heard of bucket drills? They put trash cans on both ends of the court and everybody runs until everybody throws up, right? I know it was disgusting. I don't even know why we did that. But I take a different approach.

[00:10:08] It was a Wednesday we lost, and Thursday and Friday we had practice. I didn't look at the film. We just sat. I sat in the middle of the court with the chair and had my players around me. And we had a conversation of why did we call each other? Who are we?

[00:10:26] Why are we here? And what will we commit to do for one another? Two days, Thursday and Friday. The same team that beat us 109 to 13 wouldn't play our Crosstown Rivals. And our Crosstown Rivals beat them by 20.

[00:10:44] And our next game was that Tuesday against them. We just had a conversation. What I found out is that it's important to understand these lived experiences. Some of the kids on my team, because, you know, everyone says to have a big team, you have to have trust. This is nice to have, but more importantly, how do we conduct ourselves?

[00:11:05] Who are we in this space? So we had those conversations. We had rival gang members. We had kids that were in fear of coming to school where they would hide their guns in the bushes. We had kids that didn't have a chance to have a full meal. We had kids that had parents that were incarcerated or involved in drugs.

[00:11:28] And from those conversations, we talked about what we needed from each other in that space. And we agreed because, you know, for those who have siblings, you can talk about your siblings. than nobody else can, right? And we wanted to create that type of culture for our team.

[00:11:47] So fast forward, Monday, we have a life practice. We laugh, we joke. And one of my players came up to me and said, hey, coach, Steve is going to be good. My mom made extra food, and I shared with the team so everybody had one. And they got back.

[00:12:03] Parents from the other kids who had those stable families, quote, unquote, came to the game and encouraged all the players. And that next game against Franklin, we won it all the time. That was the highlight of my coaching career. We didn't do much more than that.

[00:12:20] That season, we were competitive and everything. I shared that with you. So when you think about a team, a team in this concept is about setting conditions, understanding, and establishing a culture, and being a talent.

[00:12:41] Then I had to leave to go to military training, so I missed the next two seasons. But I'm happy to say two years later, that same team that lost 109-13 were state champs.

[00:12:57] It's about the culture. So if we go through this process today, I'm not going to go back in the past. We need to pick up where we are right now. I often tell a story about the difference between the rearview mirror, good, we need it, we need to be able to know what's behind us, but the front windshield is bigger because we need to see how we're moving.

[00:13:24] So today, I'm going to focus on the road ahead. Today, I'm going to ask you for some commitments. And I love commitments because people, like, I make them and then tomorrow we go back to the same behavior, but we're going to set some things in place today, how we make sure that we can work together to hold each other.

[00:13:46] They may not be victims, but I want to be realistic because you can't go back and undo what's happened in the past, but you make progress by what you say. So, I'm going to ask all of you for your full commitment and your time today as we move forward.

[00:14:03] I'm going to have a good time. I like to have fun. I'm talking a lot right now, but later on, it's going to be all y'all. Fair enough? So, let's talk about some of the conditions and some of the agreements. So, one of the things we're going to do, we're not going to shame and blame.

[00:14:22] This is not a shame and blame. This is how we got to blame. This is not any of that. All right. Now, Dr. Davis and I will monitor that, but it's all of our responsibility. So I expect everybody to say, we're not going to do that.

[00:14:39] You don't have to call anyone out. You don't have to be confrontational. You just say, that's not what we're doing. Simple as that. The other thing is confidentiality. So here's the funny part. Is this a camera? So confidentiality, it's going to be a little difficult, right? Because we've got people, we have guests, and we love to have our guests.

[00:14:56] Thank you all for being here. But just remember what you say here. You know, typically say what you learn here. You know, what you say here stays here, what you learn here leaves here, it's out there. So I know that you may be guarded, but I ask that you take some of the risks, right?

[00:15:14] You don't have to go away all the way to the side, but, you know, it's important that we know who you are. The next thing we want to talk about is I want you to have the courage to speak up. Because one of the things that I do, I look at body language.

[00:15:29] So if I see you respond to something and something is said, I may want to check it with you. If somebody says something and I see Tom throw his head back and say, Tom, can I check it with you? What was that about? I ask you for that permission because I think it's important to hear all the words you need.

[00:15:45] And sometimes we miss a lot of great opportunities because we don't pay attention to the non-verbals. And 90% of how we communicate is non-verbals. I can come in and say, hey, good morning. And they say, Alice, how you doing?

[00:16:01] Good morning, Kyle. Not the same words, but I say it differently. So we need to check in. If I were to ask Ashley, did you get up and see the national anthem? Now look, she just smiled, right?

[00:16:17] So when we see people smile, we assume what? They're happy. Were you happy about that? I'm fear. So, so, so, so, so, so, so oftentimes, so oftentimes when we have these types of communications, you may speak to someone and they're smiling and we think that it's okay, but the smile, how we smile is our first defense mechanism.

[00:16:41] Anyone ever been in the military or been in hostile situations and, and you find yourself smiling and your parents were yelling at you or something. Maybe, maybe your parents didn't yell at y'all, I got to do a lot. And my dad said, what are you smiling about? I said, I don't know what else to do. Try not to cry.

[00:16:58] Try not to cry and run, right? So we want to make sure, pay attention to what moves you. You can say, ouch, or oops, that could be our code word, ouch. There's an opportunity for us to have the dialogue and talk about those things. And I know that you all are very busy, but I ask for your commitment for our time together today.

[00:17:18] Just, you know, try to stay off the text. We'll have breaks. We typically do women breaks. By the time you get to the door, you don't let that know. We'll give you a break and we can check in on during those times, but we ask that you be present. Are we all good with that agreement?

[00:17:34] Can we all agree to that? All right. Awesome. Okay. All right. So unlike Elle, I am short and clumsy, so I probably don't need to be walking around here for a while. Oh, I'm clumsy too. I'm just trying to focus. Okay. Okay. I'll just stay out here just for now.

[00:17:51] So just a quick sort of snapshot about what our day is going to look like. Our morning, we're going to start with our team building activity first, and then after that we are going to hop into our four lenses review you know by now you all are familiar with the four lenses process so we are going to after the team building activity just get really knee deep into all the colors what that looks like good bad or otherwise and then the afternoon that's after lunch we will begin with a group activity group activity and just kind of a check in asking everyone how they're doing sort of after that morning session where we're first

[00:18:29] popping into the four lenses and then we will start with four lenses and more right and develop our next steps what are we going to do moving forward what are the commitments and whatnot that we're going to make how do we want to engage and interact with each other moving forward as al said we will have breaks throughout this time at this time we don't have particular break time set up we kind of like to play it by ear we like to just see how the flow is going kind of evaluate body language and that kind of thing if everyone is still paying attention if everyone's looking checked out or not so if we think we need a break we'll definitely call it break time then

[00:19:08] but if you all are feeling a certain kind of way and say look you know we just had a heavy moment can we get a little break let us know we can plan that into our time but that's our our day okay awesome now i want to do some introductions because i've had a chance to meet you and talk to you from this entry-level space of getting to know you through your four lenses. We only want to get to know you. So we're going to ask each of you to do an introduction. An introduction will be your name and your position within the city, but we also want to know what you do professionally, right? And we also want to

[00:19:47] have an opportunity to hear from you is, what is your why? Why are you here? There's a funny story about why. When I came up from Washington State, I was the head of the EO and diversity program for the Army National Guard and that encompassed about 350,000 people. I was developing policy. We were having an event. It was a Spanish character this month. I remember it well. I went to one of the colonels.

[00:20:12] I said, sir, will you support this event in service of health? He said, why are you here? I'm coming to get your support for this event. I said, why are you here? I said, I'm the chief of the EO diversity program. He said, why are you here? And let me answer that for you. You're here.

[00:20:37] because you're providing a service to the 300,000 people who serve this nation and this great organization and their families to ensure that they have a positive experience. That's your why, okay?

[00:20:54] Now you make me feel like it's totally important, but anyway, right? But here's your why. And then I'd like to hear from you in terms of what your expectations are. What are your hopes and fears? I was in eastern Washington, and I did a program for a law enforcement program.

[00:21:14] And I asked him this question, what are your hopes and fears? And the chief got up and said, I hope that we don't have to run you out of town like we did the last time. Our fear is that we will. And I'm like, oh, my God. Then he called my parents on the first break and said, if I don't come home, this is the last place I was at.

[00:21:32] But at the end of the training, he went back and we closed out with the same thing which we did today. And he said, well, my hope is that we don't want to have to run you out of town. And our hopes were met. As a matter of fact, you can come back and train us again. But we want to hear from you, because this whole day, our time together is about you and what your expectations are.

[00:21:51] So this is your opportunity. So we'll start. We'll just go in this order, if we could. And Dr. Davis will capture it. We aim your hopes and achievements. All right. Well, thank you. My name is Ashley Hudson. I am a council member here.

[00:22:08] I've been serving for one year, one complete year, for the benefit of Dr. Davis. Professionally, I'm the director of member engagement for the heavy construction contractors association Which represents about 200 local companies that are involved in road building site development and utility infrastructure in the area and My political experience Was my first political official political seat, but I also was involved in student council through middle and high school

[00:22:46] So my why am I here? Through my work at HCCA, I feel like I got some experience in advocacy and felt like I could bring that to the city. It's a great city, so I wanted to share that skill set that I felt was useful and also was proud to be the youngest woman elected, so representing kind of the millennials.

[00:23:18] and was kind of the main goals and the why's. So hopes and fears with our time together today, y'all. I hope that we have a nice dinner later. And that, no, you don't have to write that.

[00:23:35] I'm not kidding. Food is important. I think food is important. I hope that we leave here feeling more connected than we are, I guess now in that maybe communication between folks will be more open and I fear that it won't.

[00:24:15] Your professional political experience, your why, why are you here serving and your hopes and fears for the day. I have been a labor union leader, but I'm an elected officer, been in that profession for 21 years.

[00:24:41] My wife, it's not about politics. If I could explain it, because my friends and family complain all the time. So if you see a car coming and it has the light bulb, and it's not even dark, but it's getting dark.

[00:24:56] I'm the one that's honking, blinking the lights, or doing all the craziness to make sure that you know that you like it all. So, it is, they say my word, it is, you know, the same as how I serve, I think.

[00:25:11] So, my why is because I don't want you to be in the darkness, whether it's, you know, serving them better, you know, speaking for, you know, the community, you know, have a lot, as an immigrant, I have a lot of experience, you know, not being heard of you, and I think that makes it a little bit easier for me to understand and play for people.

[00:25:38] My hope is that we get to a place, you know, here, if you were to introduce me, be welcome, and listen good.

[00:26:04] And, um, the horse kicker. Okay, no problem. We don't really get a chance to work with each other and learn about each other, so there's a lot of misunderstandings.

[00:26:31] and from the non-verbal side and that keeps us away from each other oh that hurt us so one more hope if you don't like my hope is calling some customers because they know we're sorry everybody in the community that they're able to really see us what we're about and i know martin just walked in and we give you a chance to decompress in the dark made or

[00:27:08] stuff i like it but no i like it no prisoners there you go so we're going to come back to you because we're just doing introductions you're good all right so we're doing an introduction your name position your professional background your political uh role what is your why and then folks and peers why in terms of what why you're serving in this capacity so darth vader um mark wolf uh my professional for political experience

[00:27:46] i've been a corporate operations executive all my life so that's what i do i make organizations run run well run better things done uh blake looks very 17 years plus on the council my why is started off in my family room trying to group of people trying to build a better community in the

[00:28:19] the community was going to reverse that and maintain that passion and drive to do that for all these years uh in hopes and fears related today uh i could be fine very honest i don't have much on your side um very sort of open book and we'll go through the flow okay if something comes

[00:28:50] up later let us know we'll be happy there. I'm Michelle Davis-Junger, I'm a mayor, a few years on council, five now as mayor. Professionally, HR is my background. I am an HR consultant. I've been in HR 25 plus years, that's what I know, what I do to people. My why is I was born here, raised here, wanted to serve the community that I grew up in and was raised in, and to make history, and to

[00:29:24] sort of be the change that I did not see here in the city to make a difference in the position of mayor as I saw it. What I wanted to bring was something totally different. I was able to do that. I'm very thankful for that. But to serve the community and to give people a voice that I didn't feel like they had, which was important to me. I had my goals and what I wanted to see in a mayor and why not? So that is my why, is the people in the community and that we are doing things that are serving everybody here to the best of our ability. We're not perfect

[00:30:03] if I make mistakes, but that we are continuously trying to improve life for everyone who chooses Manassas as home. Hopes and fears, much like what was already stated, that communication is better. I think we're getting stuff done. And I've often said I don't have to like you to get stuff done.

[00:30:24] But we need to be able to communicate and express things. And what Sonja said about nonverbal is a big part of it. But that we are still getting things done. We're doing an amazing job there. But communication, the nonverbal means better. And fears, again, that it won't, but not fearful, but just more concerned.

[00:30:48] But we'll still get stuff done. and so not that that's the only goal but it's huge providing for our citizens our residents as long as nothing gets in the way of that everybody get what they need so okay you got to the hope and fear all right yep great i'm ralph smith council i made my head somewhere like

[00:31:17] 2019-70 but my um background was professional and political form future life was formed in my in my in my life, it was early for 11 or 12 years old.

[00:31:36] Professional life, back then I saw the need for service and for helping other people. But I was born in that era when there was a collision of injustice. My professional life was with the Social Security Administration, 40 some years, when it was a more prestigious agency than the current climate.

[00:32:01] It actually served people, it served the community, and cared about them, and that's mirrorless. My experience as a youth growing up, Francis forced me to leave all my parents and placed me in a good area.

[00:32:19] Father told me, always care of myself as a gentleman. There's a lot of work and so forth. You know, relationships, you're not successful just because you don't share the same ideology.

[00:32:43] You must have good relationships for the other. I continue to accept that way.

[00:33:00] My why is to answer the question that I try to get an understanding of. why did I have to be, why did me and my friends have to be in our area, just to get an education. And many of us, several of us, determined then that our why in life was to get the understanding of why that happened, how it could happen, and do all the good to make sure it never happened to anybody else.

[00:33:29] That's been my driving force. I always, which is an institution, respect all religious organizations, and I'm guided by my own decision-making as a politician, as an electric person, my situation in my life. I just hope we, my hopes, and I guess it wouldn't be tears, but those hopes come with potential tears, and then we continue with integrity, commitment, and determination.

[00:34:05] Hi, everybody. Those who don't know me, Tom Osena, City Council. Professional, I own and manage an association management company that's been in operation for 33 years, and my political experience started back I was a student council at the University of Virginia and continued to be

[00:34:38] active in politics it is interesting you know we just had the first woman governor inaugurated and I remember being active in the Doug Wilder for Governor campaign and attending his inauguration many years ago there so it's sort of like seeing that Virginia continue to be a part of that as a jesse jackson for president delegates at the state convention to give an example of some of the

[00:35:13] things and i when i had more time to be involved in those sorts of things i ended up on council sort of my my why is i became a neighborhood activist here in manassas i saw my community not being i think fully listened to and represented city council and got more involved and as it became more involved or figured out that wanted to really make a difference you had to be at the

[00:35:48] table where the decisions are made and again got re-elected sense and i like to think that remembering that what how i felt in my community is why i'm a big believer in quality of life issues sexy they're not the big uh ribbon cutting kind of events there but they're the ones that make a difference and get you know pothole fixed or grass cut or par wash you know with noise you know

[00:36:27] addressed in some fashion that is uh you know helps not only the neighborhood but strengthens our businesses or helps our businesses and become continue to be good partners that's that's an important thing hopes and fears well this is fifth time of doing this and one of the things that i find from these is that i've learned a little bit about a little bit more about each of you there have been some who've come gone but those of you who served with me uh during my length of time i've gotten to know you better and to those who are new get to hopefully get to know a little

[00:37:06] bit more so that uh because i'm i believe that when we know a little bit more we can share our experiences we can share stuff and we also understand a little bit of what makes us what we are gotten to know ralph as an example and some of our long car trips uh to vml he shared some of his trials and tribulations growing up that just helps me understand the kind of person that that he is along the way so that's that's my hope there um not really any any fears because i i know this

[00:37:45] group uh i believe uh everybody will be forthright and speak their mind as they see the truth along the way I guess the fear I would have is that I I walk away I shouldn't say walk away not not understanding but rather just that my fear would be that people won't won't share the things that they need to share my name is Teresa Coats

[00:38:19] Ellis and City Council I've been this is my eighth year and background no

[00:38:29] politics at all I think I was the president of my great class and that was because I was actually I think kind of a quiet person never really was in the you know limelight kind of like behind the scenes person got married very very young and seven children now blended family now six daughters and one son which most of you know Funny story, Ashley went to school with two of my daughters, and Natalie told me just

[00:39:07] the other day, she was, no, Ashley was the most popular person in our entire school. And I believe that. And she's like, she was always a leader. Everyone wanted to be her friend. I'm like, well, that's really good to share. And so I think that I get a lot of energy, actually, from my family.

[00:39:27] It's a good network to have. I am originally from Pennsylvania, very blue-collar family. Dad's a mechanic, mom ran his shop, and I was the first to go to college. And I had to fight for that and pay for it because they didn't understand it.

[00:39:43] They're like, you work in a shop, and I didn't want to do that. Not that I have anything against that work. It's hard work, but, you know, I wanted to do, I really wanted to learn business. I wanted to learn the business. My parents, you know, winged it, but they were successful, you know, because they had the grit and the natural ability, which not everyone has.

[00:40:05] So I went off to college, and then I have family now, ended up being in health care for 30-something years, opened a practice, ran it. Then marketing and management was more of my expertise.

[00:40:21] I went back to Mason to retrain when digital marketing hit the market and everything was different. And then I really got into community management, helping other businesses grow, and events, of course.

[00:40:37] And now I find myself really getting the most joy in mentoring, you know, just giving back. Like what I've learned, you know, the wisdom, the experience, but most of all, listening. I feel like that's, we need to listen to each other.

[00:40:53] And a lot of times I get a lot of joy into hearing everybody's views, because then we can bring it together. Sometimes I think it's very unfortunate that we are a political group, because I think as a board we would be more effective if we didn't have the politics.

[00:41:11] But that's just the way it is. You know, we bring a lot to the table. Dating your why. So why, I guess, in my council is to serve. Like I said, listen. I think I covered a lot of that already. to give back to the community and help it grow and help people with different needs and wants.

[00:41:34] The hopes and fears, you know, I hope that we can maybe, you know, I'm kind of the lone wolf sometimes, I feel like, but I am very busy, so I try to keep connected when I see you all or I'll call people if I really need to know things.

[00:41:59] But I feel like it would be good if we could strengthen relationships as one body. Bring our strengths to the table and serve the community in a more organized way. And really come together as a front to a lot of our community experiences.

[00:42:24] I think together we're stronger. That's my hopes. My fears. I feel like we have to stay focused as a body. I do fear some of the decisions that we're making as council and the long-term effects of our community.

[00:42:43] When you look at some communities, and I do travel a lot for work, some of the communities where you see, oh, you know, dismal failure, you know, some of the things that people, communities do, like, why did they do that? And then you see the successes.

[00:42:59] I want us to be, you know, it takes a lot of thinking and working together in strategy, focus. - We had the opportunity to hear somebody heard stuff heard things that you knew already and hopefully you picked up some new items it's important that you continue to have it up so we wanted to set this up so we would ask that we do right now if you would i know you have books in front of you notes and i know you want to take notes because we can clear some area off because we're about to do a group activity in like 10 minutes or so i wanted to make sure you have space so let's clear putting the space off

[00:43:38] for now you'll have the chance to go back and bring it back but as you're doing that i want to would bring them along to fit your mailing address on dress it to yourself find out and then i'll come and pick them up with your personal or whatever address you want to use where you have four slides come to and um give that back to me and i'll give it back to you a little bit later but we want to get into the foundation of why we're here and now one of the things that i was

[00:44:10] able to get from city was your code of conduct and great document i think everybody should have one But we want to focus on three elements of that. All right, Dr. Davis, you want to go over those real quick if you don't mind?

[00:44:26] Oh, yes. Okay, part one, our stage one. The mayor and members of the Manassas City Council will be truthful and forthright with colleagues, city staff, and all others as they make decisions that are in the best interest of the city and its residents.

[00:44:41] Five. The professional and personal conduct of the mayor and members of the City Council must be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Members shall refrain from abusive conduct, personal charges, or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of the mayor, members of the city council, city staff, or the public.

[00:45:01] And nine, the mayor and members of the city council will, through its actions and performance, contribute to a strong organization that exemplifies transparency and open communication. That's our foundation. That's why we're here.

[00:45:16] We talk about the team, and we talk about specifics. We want to talk about how we are upholding conduct, code of conduct that's future love. But this is more specifically to your relationship.

[00:45:37] So I wanted to peel back the onion and focus on the three elements that were relevant with you all in this space. So with that said, I want to get a better understanding of how you work together, right? But we'll pull out your cell phones.

[00:45:55] I know I asked that we had no phones out early, but I want to get a sense of how you view the culture. So if you would, did I put the wrong one up there? All right, I put the wrong. That's right, because I just did the last one. One sec. If you would, go to your phones and give me one second, because I have to go to the mince meter.

[00:46:18] I put the, because I just printed the one. So, yeah, it didn't work. Well, we'll just do it. I wanted to do it anonymously. So let me do it this way. We'll just have to do it this way. Yeah, I know.

[00:46:38] Why don't we just put it out there? We'll just do it this way versus, give me one word that how you would describe the culture of the council. We'll start over here. One word. How would you view it?

[00:46:55] One word. How would you describe the culture of the council? Hard word. Progressive. Progressive.

[00:47:11] Collaborative. Collaborative. Heavy dating. Formative. Performative. Show up. We show up. Hearing. Hearing. Okay, we show up. So when we think about it, we think about what that looks like.

[00:47:28] Show up. But the words have meaning. Right. So some of the same performative, they need to get the job done, but how do we get it done? How do we bring everybody into it? Is it, you know, we talk about collaboration, what does that look like, and is it always collaborative? We talk about dedicated, we talk about caring, we talk about some of those key words.

[00:47:48] And even within those words, I remember doing it at a fire department, I said, complex. I'm like, what does that mean? It means that every day is an adventure. I'm like, really? And I expanded on it, it's like we don't always know where people are coming from, and we always have to read between the lines, and it's sort of complex.

[00:48:10] What I would share with you is everybody didn't say the exact same thing because we all have different lived experiences, lived experiences in this space. And if I may ask, what did you mean by performative? I just want to make sure that, because performative means...

[00:48:26] Uh, that we, you asked for one words, rather than say, we get the job done, which didn't pick the criteria. Okay, okay, okay, I got you, I'm tracking, thank you. So, let's share a little bit about what I heard from the interview, right?

[00:48:46] And what we're not going to do, like I said, we're not looking at a rearview mirror, this is not, we're not going to relegate this to the past. We're going to look at what we can do moving forward, and those are our practices in the game, how we engage, how we communicate with one, right? We talk about labels. Labels divide.

[00:49:04] Our ultimate goal is to really look at what behaviors can be changed and what practices can we implement to strengthen those behaviors and establish a culture that is probably, we still may not see eye to eye what that culture looks like, but it's an opportunity.

[00:49:24] But more importantly, I think it's important, is that we look at this as an opportunity, a framework, for even a vehicle for the city to move forward to address the business of the city with the city's best interests in mind. so now is the uh we're gonna have a group activity and we're gonna get you moving so what i'd like to do is i could have let me see so i'll have actually stay there and we'll stay

[00:49:55] there i could have mr smith switch mr woman come over here all right so we're gonna do i love towers anyone ever been to france been to eiffel tower bonjour All right, so what I want to do is the thing that I came across many years in the military, and it was actually...

[00:50:28] Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You said switch, right? All right. All right. Okay. Oh. Oh, what was that? Oh, my God. What was that? What was that?

[00:50:43] I love it. So what we're going to do, so we're going to go to the tower. This is kind of a competition. Right? So the tower, whoever builds the tallest tower going by, I'm going to give you some materials to build that. Now, you'll have five minutes to kind of come up with your strategy.

[00:51:03] You can talk during that time, do your boot, and now you have an ahead, because you're like, you didn't know anyone. So I expect big things out of this group. But you have five minutes to talk and design what this is going to look like.

[00:51:20] After that five minutes, you will have another 10 to 15 minutes to build it, at which time there is no talking. No talking. If you do non-verbal, you can scribble it out, but your voices in the room are silent.

[00:51:40] And at the end, when we finish, I will measure, I have my tape measure in a bag. The tallest, freestanding, not leaning up or propped up against anything tower, 4 to 5. 15. But any questions?

[00:51:58] During the five minutes, we have a timer. We have a timer up for a minute. So, here are your materials. Five minutes to design.

[00:52:17] All right? Fairly simple task. The five minutes starts. you saw that was about to happen I want you to walk freely

[00:52:56] It's an international thing. Mr. Allen, can we open? Oh, yes. This is the strategy for the foundation. What is the measure of success?

[00:53:16] The measure of the highest prestanding power. Freestanding, not leading up against anything. And there has to be a marshmallow on top. Steve, do you want to join him? Go ahead. This is the only thing they can use.

[00:53:33] That's it. The marshmallows and the toothpicks. That's it. As many as you like. Just.

[00:53:49] Go ahead.

[00:53:57] Are we allowed to play with it?

[00:54:29] No. We're going to open it and check it out. We have five minutes to design it. We're going to get to you. Two and a half minutes left.

[00:54:45] I can't talk at all. I can't talk to this old man. Pardon? You're getting the nails.

[00:55:05] Here we go. I think she wants people to sing around. Performing. Yes.

[00:55:22] Yes. That's what I was thinking. I wonder what these marshmallows taste like?

[00:56:24] One minute, one minute left of the call.

[00:57:14] Okay, so here we are. Four, three, two, one. Okay, so right now, at this moment, there is no talking.

[00:57:31] And actually, Dr. Davis, we're going to be monitoring the room. we hear talking we have to penalize a group of minutes okay we're talking we're penalizing a minute

[00:57:42] all right so start to talk and give them like 15 okay go 10 minutes and 45 seconds left

[01:03:03] we're going to reduce a minute six minutes okay five minutes for a group over here and four

[01:07:57] 4 minutes left for this group, 2 minutes and 1 minute, 30 seconds, watch over here.

[01:12:52] Don't breathe, don't breathe. They would have to stand for 10 seconds. They would have to be freestanding on this hand, right? Came up about an inch short.

[01:13:12] All right. Stop, stop, stop. Whoever said that, I guess I said it, huh? All right, so let's talk a little bit about it. So first of all, give yourselves a hand. Can we wash our hands? You know, actually, we'll take a break.

[01:13:28] So, for the winners, for the winners, we did a campfire. We're going to have a campfire now. You all gave us a gift card, $15 gift card for Starbucks. Ooh, thank you.

[01:13:45] Isn't teamwork a great day? Yeah. All right, you know what? I just appreciate the fact that there are no losers, right? So there are no losers, so what I'm going to do is the other team will get a $10 gift card.

[01:14:02] Participation prize. Everybody gets a medal. We all win. We all won. Ah, got it. Okay. Thank you. All righty, so let's talk about it. How was that process? Tell me how did it feel to go into that?

[01:14:19] Anyway, this group over here. How was your process? Tell me how you came up with this strategy. Uh, I think we had a base, yeah, having a wider board. Okay.

[01:14:38] Yeah. So, tell us about, like, your preliminary work. What was the success? It was wide base, need wide base to go high, but also it was pretty quick and easy to go.

[01:14:55] Mm-hmm. About the base first.

[01:15:13] I knew we just had to go. Okay. And then be able to, watching out for each other is where there was, where it was leaning, where there was a toothpick needed to be put. and we had to keep an eye on that, so we shouldn't hobble over it.

[01:15:29] Okay, over here, tell me about your process. Well, I've seen this activity before, so I thought I knew how to work. But I've seen it done with bridges, not towers. I've seen it done with bridges and then I can hold weight.

[01:15:45] You had to hold a certain amount of weight. Yeah, so I thought I was guiding these folks to do a strategy that would stand weight. But ultimately, I think it's kind of hard to scale how much you're pushing into a marshmallow and trying to be consistent with that.

[01:16:07] I didn't even think about all of that. How was it for you? Oh, I'm glad it's over. Glad it's over, okay. Jackie, how about you? It was clear that we needed each other. As it kept in the process, different things were happening, the weight of the ship.

[01:16:31] It was so critical when we went silent because there was some new systems needed, new roles to be played, and we had to figure it out of myself, all right?

[01:16:48] I could see what she was doing. She was trying to balance it instead, but in doing so, the bottom needed to be supported. So we were finding new ways we had to operate together. - Yeah, at one point, Sonia, like, flipped ours over 'cause it was kind of a tighter foundation or I guess just tighter binding on the other side.

[01:17:09] I thought that was it. my strategy. Well, I was waiting to set it sideways because it was wider and it built up than that. Oh, see, that didn't happen. Wait, thankfully, thank you. Here's the interesting thing. You know, I've done this a lot to groups, generals and CEOs and high school and college students the most i guess the most successful one from the elementary yeah because they didn't focus on one one solution they said let's create different prototypes and they started to

[01:17:48] play with those prototypes and when they felt like it was okay and then all of a sudden they came together and i think the largest i've ever seen was like 27 inches right i was like wow these And then, but the thing about the kids, the hard part is to get them to stop eating.

[01:18:06] And it's like people would touch them, they're like, he just touched that. And I'm like, I don't care. Kids are doing anything. But that's just an opportunity just to want to have some fun. But I didn't want you to talk. I just wanted you to work together. And that was the opportunity. That's the reason why we lost the minute.

[01:18:26] Surprise! Surprise! A lot of the hmms going over here. Yeah, his name is so cool. Yeah, it's almost cheating, but that's fine. Well, when you see my lens, what colored lens I have, you'll understand why. You'll understand why.

[01:18:42] That's all I can tell you. So let's do this. Thank you all for indulging us and some of you may be playing this kid's game. It's all about having fun. We can kind of revert back to that and just connect with one another. I'd like to propose like a 15-minute break. And Steve, do you want to make an audit?

[01:18:58] Yeah, if you would, this would probably be the last call for any of the bagels or the egg sandwiches because we'll have to clear that out to make room for any sort of hunger pain please all right 15 minutes what time is it now they say 10 30 10 30 10 30 come back at 10 30.

[01:19:29] all right have your attention please let's go ahead and reach and read All right. So, as you'll see and as you'll understand during the course of the day, I'd like to check in.

[01:19:49] For me, I just want to know where people's heads and hearts are at. I didn't share. I used to teach them during Mason. Not this campus, but the main campus. And one of the things that I would do with my students, 40% of their grade was kind of based on classes.

[01:20:06] And that doesn't, so that meant coming to my class and sitting there and sucking up my oxygen and not saying a word. Did I get you that 40%? So typically I just ask permission to check in and just see where they're at, and they can say whatever they wanted to. I'd say, "Tell me where you're at in this moment. What are you feeling?"

[01:20:25] Some will say, "I'm hungry." Some will say, "I'm tired." Some will even say, "I'm bored." But I just wanted to hear their voices. So we'll do that throughout the course of the day. So I hope that you will indulge in the past. So we're going to start over here. Give me one feeling word about where you're at in this moment right now.

[01:20:41] Ready? Ready? Okay, ma'am. - I'm George Mason, we could be right here, Matt. - Okay, your name being right here, okay. - I'm fine. - One, two, one, two.

[01:21:02] - One field word about where you're at in the middle of the face of children now. - One word, one word. - One word about where you're at, where you're at right now in this moment, how do you feel? - Capital O, capital K. - Okay, all right. - Surprise, surprise, okay. - Content. - Content, awesome.

[01:21:18] All right, now we're going to the next phase. Now you can pull out your four lenses, right? And what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the assessment, right? And this assessment dates back to the old Greek God's, what did I say it now?

[01:21:38] Hippocrates. Hippocrates, yes. Hippocrates, position. Yeah, right. And what he did is he said that innately how we function is kind of based on our temperament. Our temperament influences how we engage, how we communicate, how we see others in this face oftentimes we connect with people you know you go to a party the first thing that you do is you look around the room and you look forward a friend someone that you doing that has something

[01:22:11] that's connected right so as we look at how we view the world what lenses really helps us to understand what our lens how our lens shapes how we see and how we view other people but just as importantly how they may look at you knowing what i know now going into new rooms in the future i may i may kind of kind of gravitate to different people in the room based on what they share with

[01:22:45] me you know when mark talked about being the ceo and meeting other companies and his model was making it better and our model was kind of making talent and teams better i may gravitate to him and say hey what's going on because we have that commonality now i understand that but i didn't know that initially because we go through this process we want you to understand what your chart means and how that may influence how you may engage each other but ultimately we want you to understand that all these temperaments none of them are bad right we have to get away from

[01:23:22] labeling we talked about that earlier none of them are bad all right so we just have to figure out I had a lever in the team. It's my superpower. I tell people all the time, I'll tell a personal story, but I was green and shady, right?

[01:23:38] So, growing up, I was that kid in class that was always kind of talking, and the teachers would say, he's a leader. I know you wouldn't believe that, right? And the teachers said, he's a leader, because when he does good, the other kids will do good, but when he's acting up, they act up.

[01:23:55] And then once I got to college, I was diagnosed with a dyslexic, and I'm like, that explains so much. Then I had my own son, and as he got over, he was having the same issues, and I wanted to put him on meds. And I said, well, Mr. Dirk, you take the meds.

[01:24:12] You're a model to him. So I started to take the meds, and like two weeks later, I'm like, not taking the meds. Is that an ED? It's my superpower. I need that. Right? So some people are thinking about our solution.

[01:24:28] I got eight of them. I don't know if any of them are any good. But I got eight of them, and they're all there, and it's like bouncing off each other. So people learn to leverage my superpower. You know, it was different. So when we think about it, we're going to talk a little bit about How you believe, behave, and become.

[01:24:49] Yes, and just a quick road map before we jump into really tools or expectations, which really is the core of Poor Lenses. Just want to say that this here is a road map. It's not a checklist. It's not a set of rules. It's really just a way of understanding how we got to where we are, right?

[01:25:07] How to get to where we are, what are the processes involved in that? So just want to highlight sort of this circular process, right? Our beliefs, at the top here, our beliefs inform how we behave and how we behave together helps to inform what we become as a team.

[01:25:25] And so it's important to remember that we don't start with the behaviors. We start with the beliefs. Those beliefs can be either spoken, they can be unspoken. I think some of you earlier even mentioned a lot of those non-verbals, things that we think about each other, the way we engage, maybe non-verbally, non-directly, but they're powerful, right?

[01:25:43] and they inform how we behave, which then informs what the larger group can become. And so just as we're thinking about our different colors within the four lenses, just remember that all of this is changeable, right? You can change what you believe, you can change how you behave, and ultimately changes the group dynamic, what the group is and what the group can become.

[01:26:05] So just remember this. I hope it's heartening rather than not to just know that this is a, it can change, right? Things are not set in stone. so so based on what dr davis has said i just made me think about something you know as a as a leader when i used to supervise and manage people in the military my ultimate goal was to get people that were motivated i much rather say i much rather pull you back than have to push you forward right i want you to go out and get it and make it happen and i thought about the ones that i

[01:26:43] had to push forward and later on i realized that wasn't bad they were being cautious and they were with the ones that were process, policy, and legally. So I would do stuff, and I'd get it done, and they'd say, oh, my God, that's brilliant.

[01:27:03] What did the lawyer say? I haven't talked to him yet, but, oh, no, you didn't. You didn't put this out there without. So I go back, and I had to learn that lesson the hard way. I didn't get in a lot of trouble, you know. The boss said I was brilliant, but don't do that again, right?

[01:27:19] But sometimes, and don't ever use this, I might never put it out there because y'all would use it. Anyway, but make sure you follow the process, and you need people within that framework. So when we think about the colors, we think about blue. So who is a blue?

[01:27:36] Matter of fact, I can tell you. My blues are... Wolf and Luna. Wolf and Luna are my blues. So tell me about... Now, interesting enough, Mr. Wolf is also an orange. Was it? Yes.

[01:27:52] I'm a unicorn. A unicorn. There you go. All right. I'm a rainbow. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. so when we think about the blue you want to read some of the characteristics um from yours as it relates to blue no okay mr woof uh mine will open up my orange stuff

[01:28:39] No, you're doing fine. Are these the titles? Is that true? Yeah. So talk about your... Your lens. I thought you wanted to read it. Your lens. Did you see that number? It was all about one.

[01:28:57] There you go. I shall. The blue peacemaker means your natural instinct is to approach conflict and the disruption of human connection that must be mended you are driven to the need for harmony empathy and authentic relationships when faced with disagreement you instinctively tune into the emotional undercurrents feeling the distress of those involved feel your pain and seeking to facilitate understanding and reconciliation you are not driven to win the argument but ensure that in

[01:29:36] the end relationships are preserved and everyone feels heard valued and understood okay so how did you that is that is a part of me and and i will go back to a different similar different way when i did uh i've done the merchandise my color coding change is based on the role i answer the questions

[01:30:13] from okay so when i answered the questions as a corporate executive i get one set of colors if i answer them as a politician i frankly get another um and so for me i was split almost equally three ways so i was blue orange and gold almost evenly across the board okay um so i guess you could say - I refuse all the time.

[01:30:42] - Or ballot. - You please. - You're multi-faceted. - You please. - Yes, but Ellison, do you read your green? The first page. - Sure. - The first page, the second page.

[01:30:57] - Primary green. - Tell me about this. - Where? - Right there. - Okay, this? - Okay. - Primary conflict lens is that of a strategist. This means your natural instinct is to approach conflict as an intellectual challenge to be deconstructed, You are driven by a need for logic, competence, and elegant systems.

[01:31:25] When faced with a disagreement, you instantly detach from the emotional fray to diagnose the root cause of the problem. You are not driven to win for the sake of ego, but to arrive at the most objectively correct and intelligent solution. You sound like a robot.

[01:31:41] Okay. So, but is that a fair case of interpretation? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Okay. You're a gold. I'm gold, so it says your primary conflict lens is that of the gold guardian.

[01:31:57] This means your natural instinct is to approach conflict as a threat to order and stability that must be managed and contained. You are driven by a deep secret name for responsibility, for secret and fairness. When faced with a disagreement, you instinctively look to establish rules, traditions, and hierarchies to determine a threat towards action.

[01:32:18] You are no, not driven to win for personal gain, but to ensure that the proper process is followed as a, and a just, able, and responsible outcome is achieved. Okay, interesting, right?

[01:32:35] Now, many of you, because these are temperament, and even though you may have scored high on one, that doesn't define who you are and its totality. You said you had others. So I want to go to, I want to go to Lou again.

[01:32:52] So we have... We have anyone read orange. Orange. Yes, no one has represented... We have an orange. We have an orange. Will you read your orange? Yeah, so just about the process. So I took the test, and I actually went back the other day, retook it, and I got the same exact scores, but I got a different primary.

[01:33:10] Really? What was your other primary? Well, the blue on the one, this one's orange. Okay, you read the orange? But the percentages are the same. They just rank them, or rank them. Okay.

[01:33:23] interesting go ahead will you read that one the orange one your natural instinct is to approach conflict is an immediate tangible problem that demands a swift and practical solution you are driven by a need for action freedom and expediency when faced with a disagreement you are less interested in the underlying theory the emotional fallout of established rules you are intensely focused on the question what is the fastest most effective way to fix this right now and get back to doing it which is not to me very is similar than blue okay some overlaps and there's overlap in all of these and depending

[01:34:03] on your circumstances and where you're at who you're working with your temperament will come into play the opportunity is understanding when the flip is close right and when to take the opportunity to engage now we're going to talk about how these work together but i think about an orange and sometimes i probably have a high orange tendency i'm the kid that ran down the the hall with the scissors. That was kind of my thing. And I tried to make things happen

[01:34:35] very quickly. And then I run into a gold. Gold standard is a follow process. And he's like, I don't like you, right? Because you're slowing me down. And these are just barriers, but it's a necessity. The opportunity should have been, it's like, okay, before I run down the hall with the scissors, I can go to the gold and say, I'm about to run down the hall with the scissors. How can I get to the other end as quickly as possible? What do I need to do and how can we help me get there? When we talk about certain things, there's an old proverb

[01:35:12] that says, you can get there fast by yourself and you can get there together and enjoy the future. There's another proverb, I love proverbs, you know, sometimes there'll be people who will say things and do things and they'll say, Al, why don't you respond? And I will say that the lion doesn't turn his head when a little dog's on you. You cannot always listen to the noise. You don't

[01:35:45] They say this and this and this about you, Mr. Dara, and it's like, I don't care. Because it's not influencing or impacting my wallet or this food that I have. What matters is, what can we do that's in the best interest of whoever we're supporting?

[01:36:08] That's what matters. So when we talk about it, what I'd like you to do. I'd like people to better understand. So we're going to ask you. I'm going to probably need to give them some footpages. I want you to clean this presentation because oftentimes, like me being in an orange, I could be misunderstood.

[01:36:28] So I want you, within your groups, and we'll go back to your primaries, right? So, and for the gold, it will be Ashley, Ralph, and Ms. Davis, younger, and Michelle. And the green, it will be Lucina and Ellis.

[01:36:46] And the blue, Luna and Wolf. We just won't have our orange representative. So, you can take a moment, and what I want you to do, the instructions, is build a presentation for the class that educates us on what it's like to be your primary temperament.

[01:37:09] What does that look like? When you're engaged with other folks, when you're at meetings, what does that look like for you? And we'll put this slide back up in a minute, but it'll be Ashley Smith, it'll be Ashley Houston, Miss Ralph Smith, and David Shunga will be in one group, so you come together.

[01:37:27] And then the other group will be Miss Ellis and Asina, Tom, and then it'll be Wolf and Lola. Then you gather. That's it? I'm so sorry. For me, it's Vasquez Luna. That's my last name.

[01:37:42] I'm Vasquez Luna. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I will fix that. Everybody over here. I can't fix it. I'm not going to do this next. Well, we need to go out. The names are important. What the values do you mean? All right. So go ahead and bring it to your group. We do have to go a long way.

[01:38:00] One second. And then you go over. Let's take our sheet and go out. All right. - Yeah, you can go out, yeah, feel free. - You've got what, what we got. - Strengths. - Right. - Strengths? - Strengths, yes.

[01:38:15] - Yes. - Consider each of the four areas, thank you. The clarity, four areas of value, of joy, and strength. - Okay, come on. - Your values, you're gonna write down. - Thank you. - Do you feel it?

[01:38:31] - Do you want me to move it? - We're going out. Come on, Terri, let's find out. - Come on, I'm going to strap them together. - 10 minutes or so? - Yeah. - It's in the back of me, I'll read it to you.

[01:38:50] - Okay, so to consider if you read this presentation on what it's like, I want you to get four areas of value.

[01:39:19] - Oh, okay. - As a goal? - Well, yeah, as a goal. So one of the things that educates us what it's like to live in your... in your temperament, and that's your attempt at it.

[01:39:48] It's really important to bring you a little bit.

[01:40:30] And then this is sitting over there. It gives you confidence that you're going to be sloppy. That's a part of it. No, I think that's your business. The ability to help you nationwide with the restaurants. Yeah, that's what we're having with the restaurants. We're going to go ahead and go ahead and tell them, right?

[01:40:45] Because this is all for that. Right back. Because see, that's his sales team.

[01:41:01] No, it's not fair, is it? We're definitely getting more in the slot now, which is, his narrative is correct.

[01:41:39] Yeah, there we go. Oh, wow.

[01:42:14] Bigger picture offsets.

[01:42:43] Bigger picture offsets. We're also not bouncing with buzzer.

[01:43:00] No, it's one of the third kind of four. That's kind of the opposite. Just for example. We're cool places and parking lots.

[01:43:37] They're all the cool community, the whole community working together. Five minutes, everyone, five minutes.

[01:43:46] Oh, yeah, that's where the old, um, we're in the picture, like, um, first-time business.

[01:44:28] It's not, I don't know which one, but that's just, any trend towards cheaper dining options actually doesn't furnish the way we're actually, yeah, structure.

[01:44:50] Yeah, I mean, Miguel is right, but I guess Rots are safe. That's why it's sales tax, because besides the Home Depot, Dell's not getting people buying computers. It was

[01:45:04] Yeah, that doesn't come off It's like 2% now Yeah, they run into the state It's not in our It's not in our

[01:45:43] It's out Oh, over 18 months.

[01:46:23] Sorry, can't weigh in. Yeah, that's a great answer.

[01:46:57] I went there in November once and I haven't been there.

[01:47:26] To Alaska in November? - Yeah, that's what we landed. - Is there a hot spot yet? - Yeah, you should be able to. That was a hot spot word. - We don't land too hard. The insides are out, it's just the casing, I'm like, so we land and it's negative four.

[01:47:44] - Yeah, oh yeah, it's important. - We're not dressed for this. - No, we've been sitting at a very, it was supposed to be the best element here. - I know all about Mason's Wi-Fi. - Oh, you know? - One minute left, everyone, one minute.

[01:47:59] Can you get through that way? I can. Okay. Where are we putting these, sir?

[01:48:16] You can put them up on the wall and on the whiteboard. That's right.

[01:48:35] All right, Mr. Wolf, are you going to get your, have you put it up in the wall? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you've got a blue marker. Look at the blue mark. You've got a blue marker. Three. Three. So we've got a red.

[01:48:52] Go, go. Don't you do that? Wow. We didn't have gold. We didn't have gold. We'll see if we can. I'm sure we didn't do it. I thought I got one. Are you saying? Well, it wasn't here. We didn't do it. Oh, you can put it there.

[01:49:15] You can put it there as well. All right. Who would like to go first? Greenwood. Okay, green. All right.

[01:49:30] Okay, louder person in the room. That's right. All right. So, green, go ahead and tell us about you. Tell us about you. I don't know which shade's mine. Oh, it's a green. look at that. Why we love being green. Money, money is great. We all love money. So our values, among other things, we remove said motion. It should be emotion from conflict. We want to look

[01:50:02] at facts along the way. Our joys, how we get to the solution is important to us. And encouraging everyone to be heard. We want input from people along the way here to come up with a solution. Our needs, no crying. Don't cry to us because tell me what's on your mind so we can understand. We want clarity in the problem solving. Our strengths, our patience, we tend to look at

[01:50:37] backs and set aside emotions we want to see the bigger picture uh don't have i feel like this one don't have a big ego can move on and this is an important thing particularly in our position as counselors uh can move on after the decision is made especially if we're not on the winning side of a decision okay thank you right and that's Teresa okay all right so we're the golden kids

[01:51:07] so for us value order process responsibility stability fairness very solution oriented no matter what we come to a solution that works pretty much for everybody um we find the joy in stability um and seeing the success of the things that we have worked on so hard being able to see the success not only with on the board but in the community as well because we want to support seeing people grow and ourselves as well as the community folks growing from what we've put in process and being orderly and having processes um comfort and togetherness also is important for us

[01:51:47] to see amongst each other so um and then for our needs we need to have integrity be committed and involve that dedication and all that along with it our strengths are confident resolution and being able to stay focused all the stuff that goes on we're able to stay focused on

[01:52:27] people people are people are the key people are what's important uh the joy is kumbaya moment where everyone's holding hands and keeping happily together in harmony.

[01:52:43] The herd is our need and what we, our strength, what we're trying to resolve for is family, protecting the family, helping people grow, but staying together for protecting the herd So when we look at this, right, so what kind of resonates with you all?

[01:53:14] Did you look at the list and hear the different things? What comes to mind? Well, I thought there was one thing so funny. But some research I did on this, one of the highlights from Dr. Arthur put out. I kind of read the letters in the court entry.

[01:53:30] And I chuckle when I see it. I look at Mark Wood when I see it. because we've been emphasizing the blue it says acknowledge a goal for a gold lens to acknowledge the emotional impact when dealing with the blue okay but the one thing with with tom and theresa with the green and michelle pointed out we do order processing and stability and the research actually in the book he gave us it says our green side helps you see the wisdom from an updated, improved, and processed for the sake of long-term competence.

[01:54:07] Our emphasis on process does blend in with the green processes also, or tendencies, with the green tendencies also. - Okay. - Any other thoughts?

[01:54:24] Can I talk about emotions for a minute? Because I heard, like, no emotions, but then I also hear, what is emotion in the byproduct? What are emotions byproducts?

[01:54:41] - Things that have happened to us. - Things that have happened to us, right? - Yeah. - So, you know, there was a thing about writing, I think Dr. Martin Luther King used to say, rioting is a result of people being that hurt. So I can ask, I can have the conversation, but the lesson you hear me is almost like my son when I ignored him and he called me daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy.

[01:55:04] And someone said, for the sake of God, would you answer that child? Well, they just kept getting louder. And if people thought they did not hurt, they just kept getting louder. Or they would manifest themselves in emotion. We also talk about pain, right?

[01:55:21] Pain manifests itself. in emotions. Not only emotions as it relates to what we perceive to be, but our actions. So when we think about how these teams work together, right, and we talk about, you know, the herd, I need to go acknowledge this. We do a lot of training as it relates to customer service, and oftentimes if you go to the store and you have a complaint with someone and it says, man, will you just calm down? You're like, oh, it's really going to get happy now.

[01:55:55] You know, don't discount my emotions. I'm frustrated here because I was on a phone tree for 35 minutes the other day, and I couldn't speak to a person, so I came here in person to speak to you, and now you're giving me to run around. My emotions are about to kick in.

[01:56:15] So one thing that may be helpful to do is if you're agreeing and acknowledge that someone that may be in a blue space may say, I need to acknowledge your frustration. What I hear you say, what I heard you say, is it's called listening, empathetic listening.

[01:56:31] There are some things that people can say that we listen to, that we understand, we can repeat, right? The active listening thing, but what about empathetic listening? Empathetic listening just means that I can attach the emotion to the conversation. I can say, you know, Steve, I can tell this, I can see this is very frustrating.

[01:56:53] So let's figure out how we can get to a space where we can have a conversation and move forward. Once I acknowledge that, he said, okay, Al's hearing, right? When you tell someone to calm down, you just pour gas in the air, you know?

[01:57:16] And sometimes people just want you to listen. My wife, this is recording. Someone you know. Somebody I know would say, your husband said this. My wife is a circle of the talk. Right.

[01:57:31] I want to get to that. I say, let's go. Okay, I tell you, my phone calls in five minutes. Let's see. She's like, hey, you know. And I remember when we first started dating, we had a blended family. So I bought her kids a Toys R Us Christmas card to go buy a bike. So I gave them the kids, and then she called me, and I'm on the freeway.

[01:57:49] I'm on this big brick phone. Some of you don't know what that is. Right? And we're talking, and I'm driving. Back then, it was legal. And she's telling me this story. I've hinted to a man, and she says, honey, I was looking through the drawers, and I was like, okay. Well, babe, where's the car?

[01:58:07] You know where they're at. Because I called towards the rest and had them put a stop on it. So, well, no, no, let me finish. And then my brother came by, and we emptied some other drawers, and we looked, and I went, babe. do you have the cards will you let me finish because look if somebody comes and uses those cards before i call and cancel i'm gonna be really pissed and she goes on the whole story and she says that i'm still looking for him what do you think she was really trying to tell me that was one part of it the other what else do you think she was trying to do she didn't want

[01:58:44] you to be mad at her she didn't want to be mad but somebody who was you know she was married and she's had that she said but she was trying to tell you that those cards were important to her too when she wanted you to know how hard she was looking for. What the hell with that?

[01:59:01] Where it is, right? But when we have communications, you have to understand what people are coming from. So depending on your temperament, for me sometimes, when I'm in my military, when I was in my military uniform, look, this is the bottom line, let's keep it moving, let's go.

[01:59:18] Next, I'm not the barber. Next, because I had to keep a high volume. My wife is a nurse practitioner. She only did 15 to 20 minutes with a client. She always takes things. I'm like, you can't have a business like that, babe. not about making money it's about taking care of people and we're gonna stop right but families stay together things are important we have organizations that have folks that if you're late from work they call you dad so then some people have family they have to get kids daycare

[01:59:57] or school so if you're working for a green or a gold someone that focuses on family they have a challenge because they may be five or ten minutes late because they're focusing on their priority their family well and if i can please you know so i'm thinking so we all have significant others and uh we've learned uh how to adapt you know to you know your illustration but i think we can all think

[02:00:30] of illustrations where my husband is not like me in any way shape or form along the way here it is at times you know there are frustrations and so forth but when you know when i take the time to stop and think what's really happening along the way and what's a better way of hearing what he's having to say to me or and i he does the same for me at times i'll come back from a council meeting

[02:01:06] and he'll say how did it go and expected me to go and really give him the two hour and a half description of everything and i'm done talking i'm i'm finished i just want to sit watch tv whatever at that point, and that sometimes is a frustration because he wants to know, particularly if I've talked about an issue that's coming up or a vote or something of that sort. But that's also true, I think, you know, when we talk about our businesses where we have clients or members or customers that we work with, that, you know,

[02:01:43] we're trying to hear them and particularly see how their needs are being met or what they're trying to tell us at times. And that's true also in our position of counselors here is is listening but vice versa that it's important most people i think tend to do all of those things they they recognize political level if i want something from my government there are a lot of different ways to do it but one of the you know

[02:02:20] there are effective ways of coming in and talking all enough and saying i want to talk to you about this sort of thing. There are other ways where we know people just go and protest and I'm not just saying on local level we see that you know nationally and where we're trying to make a statement there not knowing how effective that is and so one of the things I think we've learned this week I'd say all of us have learned is the more personal professional relationship you can

[02:02:58] have people you're interacting with more likely you're to be heard because you're able to talk to people that i fix on you when i come in and we we talk rather than um i pick up the phone and i start yelling at her and just say i can't believe you did this or you know immediately i'm counting on you to vote this way or these sorts of things but we talk things through a bit to hear each other why where what's your position why are you there you want to here's mine here are the reasons why

[02:03:33] are there any commonalities along the way and that's true i think when we try to work with our residents i can't solve every resident's problem business problem but i want to hear you know we need to hear from them and find where we have common ground then if we can send matt over there to solve the problem for us or anna along the way we we try to to do that and we have i think we we're very good at having the staff city manager that that is you know toward that but there are times i have to say no because can't can't be done can't be done in my business uh you know in my

[02:04:13] a long way or it can't be done in our relationship we don't have the money to do it at home so we're not going to be able to do it as much as my husband may want to go do something or buy something those sorts of things the differences really can be the strength i mean you and i see that we are i am green and gold and you are born yeah i mean it but it has really benefit uh to been to our benefit in our business relationship you know i think about what i heard earlier and

[02:04:46] i'm going to go back to coach ellison about her eight years that she's been in business and she shared with you about how her kids came back and said most popular kids in school but and you have businesses care about focus and being like i run businesses and i do this and my time and i want to get things done right and that kind of speaks to that strength but then you also were able to talk about your commitment to your community and i think about you getting

[02:05:23] involved in government at a very early age and coming through this process and even though you're junior to your freshman year your sophomore year now right so this is important and and i heard uh councilwoman i guess that quest that's quest luna that's it right we all talk about people being important but i don't know if you heard an illustration about i'm the person that drives down the street and i see your lights are off and i'm gonna flash my lights and hawk and wait it's like they turn to me because i care about the people even before it goes down she's that representative

[02:06:02] And sometimes, you know, emotions come out. You may hear certain things or see things that are like, why are you so alone? It's about people and about families. And you're going back and you're getting the politics of the University of Virginia way back in the day.

[02:06:19] You've been doing this for so many years and 32 years in purpose. And you understand the relationship and connection between the politics. You're committed. And I heard Ralph talk about, you know, his experience about why do I have to leave home to learn something?

[02:06:34] You know, my commitment is to have people to be able to have what they need to get in this community. When the mayor talked about her experience growing up and she wasn't representative of her, she wanted to have to be a voice for people that, because she didn't have that voice when she was studying, and that was important, and she brings that back to the table.

[02:06:57] And sometimes, you know, if she wants to get it done, she wants to have people who are focused and working together. And sometimes that passion, you know, and being in that experience, people don't always understand that. And then you have, you know, my fellow CEO, Warner, who's been working in the community for years and has basically been able to build and leverage businesses, help them to grow.

[02:07:23] His commitment is a little process. I mean, we talk about gatekeepers and collaborators, all of you have that. But when we think about our temperament, you have to ask the question, who are we talking to? You talk about going to some communities and you're saying, how did this happen?

[02:07:41] You know, to others that are going well, and you say, how am I going to plan and bring this prosperity over here? Our temperament helps to drive us some of that. And I believe that once we learn how to leverage these different temperaments and turn them on the mouth when we need them, or leverage the people who may have them, there's a great opportunity for success.

[02:08:04] When we talk about the different temperaments, right, we talk about society in general. And this is based off of Myers-Briggs' work. And if you look on the, based on your way, the left-hand side, you'll see the green and the gold are aligned.

[02:08:23] Green goals. So, green and gold's typically, in most cases, are more introverted. That doesn't mean that all of them, and there are times that you may be extrovert, but I would say that if you're more green and gold on that side, you can be extroverted when you go home and pass out.

[02:08:49] You can be exhausted, right? I think, Tom, you just said, when I go home from a meeting, I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm done, right? So, we talk about these, and they want confidence. They want order and structure. Got it.

[02:09:04] good my other side where i'm at the orange and blue we're we're extroverted i get my superpower from energy and from engaging with people i want to talk to everybody i go home i feel like you're like felt like popeye made a whole can of things all right it's about freedom I was around with brick phones, too, my dad, I was in the car.

[02:09:35] I asked a question once about a TV show Lost in Space, and I was like, the people are like, but orange and blue extrovert and when you think about it we talk about it and from the myers briggs so you could look at your colors and you could see that you know i'm on the orange side so i probably have i probably have some some orange with some green in me but i'm mostly at orange

[02:10:14] right and it'll tell you the eyes mean that you know the the these are the like the right brain thinkers right brain learners i'm a visual learner so you can't just talk to me and say okay this is what the plan is going to be and i'm like you i need you to draw that there's been times at the basketball game down the ball's going and you call out the double screen off the baseline and i'm like you got to call another time out because why because you got to draw that and i need to see

[02:10:47] and you may have people within your community on this team that are visual learners and you'll have to be able to find a way that you can adapt what you're doing to ensure that you have an opportunity to get it right you just can't talk about it you just can't present it so i can get you a copy of this i think i don't know if i made a copy but i can email a copy of this particular slide everybody can have it and kind of go over theirs all right so what we're looking like at time yeah i've seen the interest of time i think just go through this really quickly and maybe not break out yeah we're not gonna break out but some of you've already mentioned this so

[02:11:26] name names of these people so people in your lives that that have a great influence on you right that are important to you and i want you to think about what do you think they're my wife is totally opposite you know she doesn't like to get up and speak in public although she will because that's what she'll follow me around and she's like if she gets to a point where she's hyperventilating right but based off of what you've learned today what would be their primary

[02:11:59] preference my wife is definitely a green you know it but now you it depends on what she yeah but depends on what if she has some libations she opens up a little bit more but take a moment and identify what you what you might do to kind of build that relationship so what I do when she talks in circles and because I'm ADD and she's she can be like you know hand movements and all that I turn my head to the side and pull my eyes on you and she understands that

[02:12:37] if we're having a serious conversation because if she does something zaps or does uh or gives me that body language I look at all that it'll throw me off because my mind is starting to process why did she why did she dump her head like this why did she what did she mean by that why did she you know i'm starting to think i'm not even hearing what she's saying anymore i'm trying to analyze you know so in the interest of our relationship and then i solve it and then she's an international

[02:13:10] topic to ask me why do you want me to listen because i want to be perfect so think about your relationship a little bit and you can write that out later because i know we want to be respectful of your time but in the interest of time there's any one or two people want to share there? Yeah, I think that my husband would be blue. And I think maybe partially comes from like the life experience of being a young father. You know, his son is always, he's

[02:13:48] always first. Like well before him, his son's needs are first, you know, and that's, you know, and he's been fortunate to have jobs that understand that, but I think that that's something um that that trait of being a father and just putting family first i think um is it would fit him so how do you what did you let me see you go here but no let me ask the question here it's like take a moment identify what you might do to kind of strengthen that relationship so like

[02:14:25] me and him as a goal to a blue right um i think like me being like in the stepmom role and somebody that I guess kind of came to adulthood with more like freedom I guess I'd say I do my best to consider and be you know be there to support and and try to take the load off some you know when I can you know if it can be like you I'll take him to practice or like you know whatever it is just

[02:15:00] to try to assist and and put you know put our son's needs first to you know just try to do that as it has a good team team there yeah awesome anyone else yes uh my wife is an extreme goal which is unusual for a professional level artist i would think and your wife is order and structure she's what order and structure oh yeah strength and she's

[02:15:35] a fan she's she's a ballet dancer oh ballet okay but so yeah she's you know dot i's cross t's make list to the extreme whereas even in my business side my orange comes through where it's pushed for an immediate answer solution don't worry so much about structure get done and move on

[02:16:10] so what did you have to so what did what have you done to order to help i told you I mean, it's like This remembers being She tolerates me But no, it's realizing at some level outside the immediate moment that there is a need for that and what you touched about earlier

[02:16:49] the most strong organizations are very purposeful in aligning the leadership structure with opposites. When I've been my most successful from a career perspective, it's when I actually had to flip roles to be more the structured quarter guy, but I was dealing with a pure emotional president of a company, but we were able to have to keep work together.

[02:17:27] The adage opposites attract, and opposites fill in each other's weaknesses. I like that. So we're going to do this one thing. We're going to skip it, which was a ton, because you all have been great.

[02:17:44] Skip the dog, although they're nice. Oh, I like dogs. You know, we were just going to ask you to figure out which one was, you know, the orange, blue. You know, they didn't have any pitfalls back then, I guess. So which one are you facing, right?

[02:18:00] And we're going to take you some pictures. okay so we're going to do break lunch a little bit early because it is because it is here but what do you think about this there's there's two walks there's a low maturity wall and then we just say this because people are like i'm very mature i would just say this low maturity wall is where most of us operate it's about pride it's how we view things but it's also about our self-interest and that's what we break the table it's like a radio station that we all turn to we listen to the the same radio, WWIIFM, what's in it for me?

[02:18:39] WWIIFM, what's in it for me? You can listen to it every morning. And that's how we start our day. And when you go and you look at people, and you have conversations, we ask what's in it. When you get to a situation later on, and we'll talk about this in the afternoon, we'll talk about humility, and we'll talk about, you know, others.

[02:19:03] Not about how good I made the team, or how good I am, it's how good I made the team. How good I am. No, but when you drive, you have a pad or a...

[02:19:20] I've got my laptop. Yes, it's at work. When it's probably time for a new one, I don't want to. It may not even be that. They had to redo a setting on Monday the same thing.

[02:19:38] 20 minutes was dead. They went in and changed some setting, and now they're about to blast it. Don't ask me what he changed. I know, for IT, they keep wanting to give me a new laptop and I'll tell them. Oh, yeah. I did that for a while. I don't want to learn a new device.

[02:19:55] I'm going to have to find it. Yeah, you know what happens? I have to understand that on the weekend, right? If I shut it down and it doesn't happen, then I have issues with my phone. Because if it will not connect to the internet, it won't do anything.

[02:20:12] It takes me like three or four times to try to bring it up and it's on wire and get off. Oh, you need another one. Four minutes.

[02:20:39] Four minutes. Can I ask a question? Four minutes. Are all the puzzles the same color on the same, on one side? Oh, yeah. Do you want us to flip them over? Well, if I could flip them over, Mr. Gerd, then it might be a different puzzle.

[02:20:57] I should have done. I mean, this is a part of my life. Yeah, yeah. I don't want you to go through hotel networks and stuff.

[02:21:13] Yeah.

[02:21:28] Both boys were at home. But would both of them be gaming and on their devices? Yeah. I'm not using them.

[02:21:57] Please don't break my pussy.

[02:22:37] Please don't break my pussy. Yes, untrained monkeys do a man's job. One minute, 30 seconds. I think they're going to need another like... What's the fastest you've ever had it?

[02:22:52] Actually, maybe like 10, 15, like 12 minutes, I think, one time. We'll give them five more minutes. Five more minutes. Because I know they can do it. I believe in the school. Are these finished, like, is there a real answer? Yeah, are you sure? Oh, fuck.

[02:23:11] I was going pssst, pssst. As you looked at him, he was, and you just looked at him, and he was like, tell him. Okay, well, now we have the answer. I don't want to do it no more. Did you walk away?

[02:23:29] It doesn't mean I just still got it figured out. We had the opposite problem.

[02:23:51] We had the same answer.

[02:23:53] okay let's go ahead and pause for one second let's just let's figure out where we're at let's just

[02:24:59] debrief right so i said early on that this is about challenging your assumption so what were some of the initial assumptions that you had about this puppy all one side all the colors All the colors on one side, what other assumptions were made?

[02:25:17] It's in a rectangle. It's in a rectangle. So I saw people say, let's get the corners. If you do a puzzle normally, you just put the corners in, right? Those are the same process that we do, oftentimes because of things that are familiar. We're comfortable with it. What other assumptions did we make with the puzzle?

[02:25:33] It's a reel. It is a reel. It can't be completed. There's the answer. But you know, here's a funny thing. Did you ever, how come y'all, have you seen this before? No. You haven't seen that before.

[02:25:51] I was walking around. I was walking around the room like this. We never looked up. I didn't look up. You were? I was walking around. I was walking around. And where this is. And finally, somebody looked up and said, but when you think about it, right, we haven't, when we challenge an assumption that we can so focus on what we're doing, Let me tell you about the personalities and the group.

[02:26:20] So, some of your blue and your oranges probably quit. They won't play anymore. Wait, who? Which ones? Blue and orange. They quit. I won't play anymore. The oranges over here are demonstrating resiliency.

[02:26:36] The oranges, I'm sorry. I got it mixed up. You're right. Because you want to be able to find and get to a solution. It's not orderly enough for me. And it's not orderly enough. It's like, this is ridiculous. I don't want to play anymore. And we had people and here it just doesn't make sense. It's like I'm saying it ain't real. It ain't real.

[02:26:52] Can't do it. But there's that structure. It's not within the five lines. It's not within the confines of how we do business. I quit. No. And then you have some people that are ultimately competitive and they're like, I'm going to figure it out.

[02:27:10] I don't know what. I don't know what. Matter of fact, they're still working. Yes, they're still going. We're going to show you what can be done. But think about this. I walked around the room with the answers. How many times did we look at problems? We were focusing. Right. We were so focused on a solution that we forget to challenge our assumptions. How we think and how we process information.

[02:27:40] similar when people from the community come in they may have questions and look for support or help or when each one of you may be dealing with something that versus thinking about what's going on we're so just like the marshmallow thing we think there's one way to do it everybody focuses them and they forget about all the other possibilities and the potential the other prototypes how we can address it so this particular puzzle is about challenging your

[02:28:09] assumption and looking at it from a different lens. Now, figure it out. You're close. That might not be the one. There's many others. We have created a new family. We make our own. But we always, we typically go to the corners of the corners. The centers are centers and it has to be all in one shape. But the people that you serve don't always work. The people that you work with

[02:28:47] don't always look like that right so what i would ask you to do is when you think about it is when you think about opportunities for the future and you feel like you're stuck let me have any look up because the answers may be right or right all right so if you would you can try to finish if you want to leave it out for a while but i would see that to put it back in the bag and please don't break my puzzle yeah there you go all right okay please don't break my puzzle That next group.

[02:29:26] Oh, you're one of them. Yes, the city council. Yes, the city of this land. Make sure I give you your name. You want to give them their final two minutes, so we're going to... We'll give you two more minutes to try to finish it up.

[02:29:43] Those who want to do it, because we have the time a lot. There you go. See? I already have the pain. That's funny, okay? And it was funny, because I did it to one group, Prince William County, and there were a bunch of engineers, and they were like, I showed it to them, I don't need to cheat, I can do it on my own.

[02:30:07] I'm like, oh wow. And everybody else in the group kind of just shut down, because they're like, this person's obsessed, and they're going to have to do it their way, only. And that typically happens in a lot of situations. Yes, yes it is.

[02:30:26] Oh, yes, yes. He did it. Oh, he did. He was going to take somebody's piece. All right. You can continue to play with that as we move forward. We've got almost a minute and a half left. Oh, just a minute and a half left.

[02:30:42] Now I can figure it out. So let me ask a question, though, as you're doing that. Who took the lead on that? No, that's what we took. We all work together. Okay, good. And from that, did anyone, even after I kept saying challenge your assumptions, what did you really hear me say?

[02:31:05] Blah, blah, blah, blah. You're not doing it right, idiot. Blah, blah, blah, blah. You're not doing it right, idiot. Blah, blah, blah. Well, it's flipping it off, you know, like I wouldn't have thought. I never, never thought about flipping it off. You said challenge your assumptions. Maybe this is wrong. How about you, Mark?

[02:31:20] What did you hear me say when I said challenge your assumptions? Did you say something? Exactly. So I'm walking through, and again, like you all said, it sounded like no one. Because it wasn't what you were familiar with. So even as you go through this, and I knew people were like, I got it.

[02:31:40] That's okay. That's good, though. I want to miss you. I love it. Typical green. But now that we understand that, right, think about it. What did you do when you found somebody? Or did you even notice people disengaging in your group? We were all in.

[02:31:57] You were all in. now i'm back in it now you're back in it okay mark gave up when you said there was no prize oh yeah okay so that's another form of motivation right so wait come on you're getting it okay you're so close you can keep working on it but we're going to talk about um and if you ever like i may do this again with the city somewhere else or with someone else don't don't tell them all the answers right oh you just gotta flip it upside down and play with it because the pieces

[02:32:30] aren't what you expected of me but at what point did you realize after even after i showed you it at what point did you realize that this is not the normal when when michelle flipped flip one of them over, and it fit, and we went, we got it. Success. We did think that maybe this

[02:33:03] was a puzzle that it wasn't a rectangle or square, but rather could fit a regular or spelling something out right okay let me ask a question i know that sometimes we have council meetings we have conversations when we think about this what are some ways that we can utilize this thought about challenging your assumptions what are some instances sometimes you need to look up

[02:33:40] non-verbal we talk about a lot about non-verbal and active listening but active listening is just not not just about the words that you hear it's also about the body language that we see and we're We're so focused on getting our hands into it that we don't look up and pay attention to the non-verbals.

[02:34:02] My non-verbal was, I'm giving you the answer to the test. You know how many times I walked by and Steve kept going, psss. You know, and it's like, and you all didn't even know at all. And I stared right in front, I mean, I perverted. Like this, like this, like this.

[02:34:20] They were back there like, there's the answer. Y'all didn't even look up. you looked up at me and just said oh you got an answer well the answers are there and then the challenge was gone for ashley because she said i don't play anymore right no i'm still in the zone right all right so i'm gonna take a break no no i said she needed a break okay so let's think about this let's talk about it from the high maturity wall right now you know we talked earlier about pride and self-interest y'all wanted to get that from you

[02:34:54] Your pride was on the line, your self-interest, you wanted to make it happen, and you know, I often share a story, I share, I like farmers, I like these little, I was saying that when elephants fight, only the grass. So, this didn't get solved, because you were so caught up in your pride and self-interest, it's nothing wrong with that, because that's how we operate, on a day-to-day basis.

[02:35:22] What? Yeah. What? See? On a day-to-day basis, that's how we do business. So the question becomes, how do we get from a place, and you're facing that pride and self-interest, what about a pause and a deep breath to say, all right, let's think about the possibility.

[02:35:41] Similar to the marshmallow game, it wasn't about the one solution. It was about the prototypes and you coming up with as many options as possible to find the best one that worked. And it could have been a variation of those. When you think about humility in others, sometimes, because, see, I thought this side was going to crash on the marshmallow tower because you had an engineer.

[02:36:05] You had someone that worked there. I'm not an engineer. Well, yeah, but you worked there because you know the business. Behold. Behold. We got ourselves up first. But, yeah, oh. Now they're glowing. Okay. But now, how do we look at humility in others?

[02:36:25] What could we have done differently during that process? But I kept asking you to tell us your assumptions. could have just said do it for us okay okay even if you gave us the answer we would have struck over okay any other what could you have done differently what would we have done differently as what as i kept asking you to challenge your assumptions what else could you have thought about definitely looking up i guess that was what i was also thinking about oh interesting we should have googled it we should have called a friend We called a friend.

[02:37:04] We called Steve and asked him to have schedule. Bring us someone from public works. But none of those talks, ah, that's not bad. Someone from public works.

[02:37:20] That's right. But we didn't think about things. In the moment, we were so focused on what we need. We were facing the Lord's church. In fairness, in fairness, and I would say, And the instructions that you gave, you were, you know, you set, I don't want to say you set us up for a failure, you set us, you gave us very limited instructions.

[02:37:48] And you wanted us to truly be successful, you would have given us, I think, different kinds of instructions. I'm here to shame it, please. I'm taking a lot of your processes.

[02:38:05] I'm seeing this low wall over here. Pride coming before the fall. It's better about me. It's your fault. That's right. That's that pride and self-interest. So the question I would have is if I was taking the other side of the wall, I would say, what could I have done differently?

[02:38:25] You would have said, Tom, you are exactly right. I would have said, what could I have done differently to prepare them? I gave them the instruction, and I walked around with the hands, hands, hands. I gave him the answer key. I stood in front of him for almost two minutes. But did you ever say, hey, hey, look what I am holding, everybody?

[02:38:48] I don't even have to watch his recording. So let's think about it. Come on. Because this is not uncommon. No, it isn't. Not even with yourself, but also with the people within the community. Let's keep that in mind.

[02:39:04] And even if they feel like, you feel like you've heard them and you gave them a solution, maybe wasn't a solution that they wanted to do. I spoke about, you know, with me and my wife, she just wanted me to listen. I don't need you to solve it for me, just listen.

[02:39:23] This is one video, I love it. I was with my wife, we were talking, and my wife says I have a splitting headache. You know, there's a nail in her hand. You know, for baby, you have a nail in your hand. I just see that's what you always do. You decided to solve it. But I just had this splitting headache, and I don't know how to get rid of it.

[02:39:41] And, but honey, you have a nail in your head. No, no, just listen. I just want to describe the pain. And he goes, okay, I'll listen. And then she says, okay, give me a hug and make my pain. He goes, ow. But that just goes back to saying that we have to, you have the answers.

[02:40:02] I need you to always think in terms of, ask yourself, in the heat of the moment, and when you can't reach a resolution, I need to challenge that. Fair enough? Okay, so stay in your groups, in your breakout groups.

[02:40:21] And now we're going to talk about, no, actually, that can just stay up. Okay. High maturity temperament. What are some characteristics of having high maturity, right? So I want you to stay in your group and list what are the different characteristics that you think you would list and your group being particularly good at.

[02:40:44] How do you demonstrate that as a green or as a blue, as a gold and so on? What ways do you demonstrate that you have high maturity? So we want you to, it's going to be a little bit easier to point out the focus of your temperaments, but okay, so stay in your groups, talk amongst yourselves, we'll give you, what do you say, 10 minutes?

[02:41:05] Yeah. Yeah, 10 minutes to just talk about what are some, what does that look like for your group? Do you want to give them paper or writing? Do they have them? They want to, okay, do they want to. Like their foot, turn. We have a, it's the high, short, and health. Humility in others is what's being centered if you are thinking in a highly mature way.

[02:41:27] Pride and self-interest is what's being centered if you're thinking wrong with it. Yes. I will cover all of the markers. Is that on this exercise? Yes. No, no, no. I guess I'm not understanding.

[02:41:42] I don't know what you want. Oh, no, not in exercise. Oh, no. So we're not, this is, we're done with the puzzle. So now we just want you to think away from characteristics of a highly mature breed, a highly mature move. Do you want us to categorize that? Yes. Yes. Oh, okay.

[02:42:00] All right. Get your marker. Oh, okay. You want to have your blue marker, I see. We've got to figure out. Are you all close over there? I know, right?

[02:42:16] Yeah, you can just stay in the groups you're already in because you don't want you to, you don't have to break out your neck. No, I don't want to see you. I crossed out. I had it here.

[02:42:33] So I crossed it out of here. Yes, yes. I have a lot of that. It might be easier to start thinking about your own group first, and then you might be able to kind of deconstruct with the other group.

[02:44:52] That's a good one. I would say that's what we're doing. Yeah, I think mine is. Okay. Right, it's all good. Right, it's all good.

[02:45:08] You are the weakest link. Hello. Did you figure that out? Uh oh. No.

[02:45:24] I would say you were orange.

[02:45:40] Absolutely. I mean, I know. Oh, we're all right.

[02:46:08] 18%. You see? I have no feelings. Don't get on my chalkboard. I have no feelings. Don't cry, as I said. No crying. Yeah.

[02:46:29] I have no feelings.

[02:47:57] I have no feelings.

[02:48:40] So what'd you all come up with? Well, you know, but let's start over here. Let's go up on that one. Gold, humility, green, blue, and the orange, we fire.

[02:49:06] Just believe it in me. For blue, we put consensus seeking. Gold, we put fair. Green, we put considering, considering of others. And then orange is...

[02:49:21] Okay. And how do you all come up with these? For Google, it was that color, like I do. Okay. And they're both green. - Hmm, okay. - So then we just looked at the other side. - We looked at the other side, so.

[02:49:37] - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, evaluated their choice, evaluated their choice. - Yeah, all right, exactly. - All right, what about you all? - Similar, I think we kind of started with, like for example, with Martha too, we kind of looked at him for that. We were also, for the green, consulting the sheet over there, trying to come up with a one word answer.

[02:49:57] - Okay. - So this is what we generally think of. you think of high maturity. Is this up here the whole time? This one's not. Hey, Ashley, high alarm. I feel like trust has been violated.

[02:50:19] Oh, my gosh. So for greens, expertise, visionary, ask thoughtful questions, consequences, thinks of all of them. As a green, I can say, I think that. Questions. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of the opposite of when you think of the low maturity, that sort of know-it-all, that rigidity, but thinking of the consequences, maybe the opposite side of that coin.

[02:50:43] For gold, following the process, staying on time and on task, focusing on the result, institutionalizing best practices. What do y'all think about that? Gold in the room? Yeah. Concur. Yeah. Orange, exploring and seeing the possibilities, creates action, energizing people, and being a team player.

[02:51:04] These are the things I know that I value most about the managers. Is that you? Half of you. Is that half of you? It's half of you. Okay. And blue, effective communicator, full team involvement, respectful and skilled motivator.

[02:51:22] Yeah. Yeah. So just. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. So in green, we need to get consequences, all of them. I'm sorry. So that is a person thinking through what all the consequences could be. It's a person who is really like, okay, this could happen, that could happen, this other thing could happen.

[02:51:38] So they're listing out all the consequences, which I know can sometimes feel annoying to others, but this is really a strength of a green. And it was funny. I won't say who. I don't have to self-incriminate. But it's funny because first thing I came in, we had a meeting and it says, I don't know why we're doing this.

[02:51:55] These colors, where are we doing this thing? I said, that's a great question. We had a great conversation. But I looked at the different polarities here between orange and green. And I remember in the military, we often get holiday weekends, like three-day weekends.

[02:52:11] it's a friday afternoon it's about two o'clock our commander calls us in he says hey all right y'all have done a great job i'm willing to reach everybody early for the weekend um so you can start your three-day weekend early unless there's any questions there's always one and then tom spoke there's always one you're welcome everybody i don't think they viewed it that way they said you know that question could have waited until monday you didn't have to ask now so now we're going to spin the next and then there's a task

[02:52:50] that comes out of it and we get off at the normal time yeah why didn't you say that was tom i had no plans for the weekend but but when we think about this right i just want people to understand that they're not trying to be predictive they just need to understand because we're always taught Like when I was in the military, you don't ask questions, right?

[02:53:17] My father would say, you know, you're a young lieutenant. When you walk into the room, you're going to look at you and you're stupid. Open your mouth and only confirm. And they ask questions, they all be accurate. And the funny one day, I said, I don't know what's going on. Can I ask a question? And I said, what does that mean? And they told me. And I leave the room and have about five other people.

[02:53:33] I'm so glad you asked that question. I didn't know. So we were operating all in the dark. It's okay to ask questions for Claire. Some people, depending on which lens you may have, may view you as you didn't do your homework. you know and sometimes i can maybe do better i can study but if i haven't been exposed to that i don't know what it is so when we think about when we move forward so we think about my biggest challenge is my is my greatest opportunity right i love the quote on the bottom the key to 99 is

[02:54:10] the one what does that mean anybody know what does that mean for you when you see it a big fan of quotes so typically to get to that 99 it often starts with that one opportunity to listen ask questions to engage because once you do that with civility and empathy it can help you get together it starts with the first step i'm a big fan of um they told you a quote i read them all

[02:54:49] the time but one of my favorites is alan doffler the illiterate of the 21st century is not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn unlearn and we learn you would have thought years ago that i had this cell phone that i went to i was sweating eight years ago no my god 10 I think it was 15 years ago when they moved out in Hamilton, and they said, "What is the most powerful computer in the world?"

[02:55:15] I'm like, "My cell phone?" He says, "You'll see. Not your laptop, not your desktop, it's your cell phone." You think about people with disabilities, and we think about, you know, we look at them in a different light, but many of the tools or functions that we have at our disposal are because of people with disabilities.

[02:55:41] Wireless, right? Texting. That came from the TV, what's the phone system? TDY. TDY. Right. Wireless mics.

[02:55:56] All that came from straws, the electric, all that came from the ADN, American Disability Act. And we all benefit from it. And yet we look at people with disabilities that are different. So we just have to keep that in mind as we look forward.

[02:56:14] But I love this quote because the key to 99 is one. So our journey. We had an opportunity to sit back and assess our temperaments. To look at who we are, how we operate, the lenses that we see. in our primary and again this is to say that all of these are good can we put that go back yes from from a real life perspective from us also the key to the nine line of the one

[02:56:50] coming off of the biggest challenge in my greatest opportunity we have to remember the least or the minority in that end with indecision-making we keep our success we have a challenge and our greatest opportunity is make sure we factor in that we don't focus on the 75 or the 99 if you will right that the one has the same need as the 99 so we have you have there is a balance yes the majority might quote rule but doesn't rule in a vacuum exactly that's kind of what i there's a biblical

[02:57:26] little parallel too that I won't get into. Okay, but I appreciate that. That's another perspective is the whole saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You got to start somewhere. And then as you continue to progress, thank you for saying that, you have an opportunity to engage. So we look at our journey blue, gold, green, and orange, right? And I can work with all of them. You know, they say some of my best friends are orange. That's a joke.

[02:57:57] Alright, but when I think about how I work and how I engage with people, I really need to look at how I believe It's important that I make eye contact.

[02:58:12] When I met with each and every one of you, I made sure I stood up with you. I stood up and I agreed with you. I tried to be on time. When I wasn't on time, I tried to apologize and acknowledge that you did.

[02:58:28] It doesn't matter what your position is, I wouldn't stand up for you. I think that's important. That's where I come from, right? When you come into my house, you come into my space or my room, I get up and I acknowledge.

[02:58:43] Some people prefer to have a conversation that says, "Get it in, get it out." out i prefer to get to know them but when i meet with someone that wants to get in and get out i kind of be respectful of that and acknowledge that their time is valuable we talk about behaviors talking about time about leaving early about how we engage and communicate with each other what i believe how i behave and then i become it the old saying is we first we form habits and then habits

[02:59:15] form us so hard to break habits because we created them so you have to do it in little baby steps Step one, it has to be consistent. When I think about the humility in others, there's been times when I've walked into meetings, and I was fortunate to be in a position where I met with a lot of high-rate people.

[02:59:43] I remember walking into a meeting, and I had my notebook. I know Lieutenant Colonel is all colonels and a couple generals. I walk in, I put my notebook down, and someone says, Lieutenant Colonel, are you in the right meeting? And I went, let me check my notebook here one second, sir.

[02:59:59] And the general walks in, everybody jumps to attention. He goes, all right, everybody sit down. Okay, Al, it's your meeting. Go ahead, let's go. After the meeting was over, I left. And a bunch of my peers came up. There were colonels and lieutenant colonels. I'm sorry to say, me too.

[03:00:17] So we think about how we look and how we are perceived. I could have been a jerk and said, okay, he said I'm in charge of the meeting. But nope, nope, I wasn't going to do it. Your champ was talking to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[03:00:33] We always just go like this. Okay, next question. But you never know who you're going to meet. You never know who you're going to meet me. You never know their story. You never know their story. I was in Boston, and I was speaking to a bunch of senior executives, and I made my own reservations. I was in a place called Malden.

[03:00:55] Anybody ever been to Malden? Massachusetts. Don't go. Okay, now you can go. Just know that it's not one of the safes. It wasn't my way. And I got there, and I was at an economic lodge. We all remember economic lodges. For those who don't know, you walk through the front door, you walk up the back, and you walk up the stairs to your room, and then you get into a room.

[03:01:19] And I had a normal white gentleman sitting there with one hand in his pants, and he had an adult friend, Rich, and he's... And I'm trying to get in my room, and he had Daph there letting me in. I said, sir, are you working? He goes, no, I don't work here. I tell you when people let me in my room.

[03:01:34] So now I'm frustrated. I go to the corner, I sit back, and he's looking at the street sign, and it says, Gold Star fan. And I'm like, Gold Star means that this person died in combat. And the street name, the street was honored after them.

[03:01:52] But all the white car comes up, all beat up, And I'm looking at him, lady gets out, looks at me and double clutches her purse. I'm pissed. First of all, on a bad day, we're like, why are you afraid of me?

[03:02:08] You're afraid of you right now. Second of all, your car is a meter, and I'm just going through all of it. She comes back out. She's coming back out. I look at her car again. I see the lights in place saying, go for our family. I pause, and I said, ma'am, I want to thank you for your family service and sacrifice.

[03:02:31] Grab the purse and say, thank you. Then something happened. She came back and asked me, did I serve? And I said, yes, ma'am. So we had that conversation, and she told me about an experience that she had when she was driving home in the street from Boston, who always has instructions.

[03:02:47] And she told me that when she came up to this one young police officer, who must have saw her license plate, he did this. He said, I cried all the way home.

[03:03:03] I didn't stop crying. It got so bad that my friend took me to the police station, spoke to the captain. The captain called the police officer, and they called the Boston Globe, and they did a story. I said, ma'am, that's inspirational. I'd love to give you that story to someone I trained with. She says, please do.

[03:03:19] So I waited, like a week later, and came out of Boston Globe. Article, a young police officer honoring a life will live. So I read the article, and here's the rest of the story. When she was 15 years old, her father just retired from the military after 20 years.

[03:03:37] He'd worked in it. He served in the Korean War and World War II. About that time, Vietnam kicked off. Not understanding, all right, what was going on, her father said, I need to go back. So he really moved, and they accepted it back. He was 15 years old. He saw a father leave.

[03:03:56] She said I'm going to dedicate my life to supporting my father's memories. So she graduated high school, she went to nursing school. During that time, the Vietnam War had escalated and our participation wasn't highly needed.

[03:04:15] So in her junior year, she had an opportunity to write a paper about her feeling. What do you think she wrote about her father? Her instructor gave her paper back and left a note on it and said this is nothing to do about her.

[03:04:30] Fast forward 40 years later, this young police officer, who was actually born in Brazil, came here at the age of five, joined the Marine Corps, did his citizenship, did his time in service, got out, and wanted to continue to serve his community.

[03:04:49] And when he asked, "Why did you salute that car?" He said, "Because the sacrifices that occurred in that family made it possible for many people." When they asked why she got so emotional, he said, "That was the first time that my father's service went on."

[03:05:10] Let me just say this, no matter who you see that comes into your chambers, who comes and meets and visits with you, Regardless of the community, we walk by heroes every day. People who make sacrifices, support their families and their communities.

[03:05:30] Heroes come from all walks of life, economic status, and everything. The question is, how many heroes are we walking by now? There's people in this room that are here. Oftentimes, we allow our lenses to influence who we connect with.

[03:05:50] As we continue to go through this process, it's part of this thing that we wanted to do here today was to really have some fun, but we wanted to build a foundation for y'all to move forward. Not that you weren't going in a bad direction, but we wanted you to come forward.

[03:06:09] You can always be better. Great teams don't rest when they're winning. They look to get better all the time. So we want to focus some time now on some products. Talk about it from the heart, from the head. Now we've got to put it on paper.

[03:06:26] Now we're going to go and look. And we're going to send this to you as well. But these are some of the temperaments, the values, strength, and all these are in your books. These books are yours to keep. I encourage you to go back and look at it. And also, if you wanted to go back and re-take the assessment again, Because, like you said, you took it a couple of times and it changed a little bit.

[03:06:49] But your work to get to this place is to be deliberate and intentional. And our contract, what we're doing is we also have what we call office hours. So after this month, you can call us, reach out. If you have any questions, you want to do the assessment, if you want to have a conversation about how to overlook them, use something from a different lens, that's what we're here for.

[03:07:13] Then six months from now, we're going to meet and meet and come back and check in, right, and have another opportunity to spend a day together. And that's kind of where we're at, right? So now we want to look at it from how we got here. And I already covered this, so I'm not going to...

[03:07:30] This is kind of the four lenses, and it talks about right here. One side, the left side is about me, right? It's about my own self-awareness. Who am I? We have to understand who we are before we can move forward.

[03:07:46] Then we have to look at, from the four lenses, self-management. How do I regulate me? I can't control what all y'all think about me, right? But I have to be aware that I know that he thinks of me. And I have to manage myself, of course.

[03:08:03] Then the next piece is my choice, ownership, and I'm no more guessing. I'm going to ask a question. When my wife is mad at me, I don't have to guess, but I just have to confirm it. Are you mad at me? I already know the answer. Like, you ought to know that, my man.

[03:08:20] I know. See, you don't have to either answer yes. We have conversations about, you know, can we talk and what that means. And that can mean different things. When my wife asks, can we talk, I just think I'm in trouble. Like, no.

[03:08:37] I say good morning. I can't talk again. Isn't there a limit on that? Do I have to talk to you all the time I see? No. Sometimes I'm better when I'm quiet. I promise you that. But the other thing is, when we look at that, and you have that self-management, and you own it, you have a greater high level of confidence.

[03:09:01] I'm going to tell you, conversation and this communication thing doesn't always feel good. You know, I want to introduce you a concept called do no harm. Do no harm is something that I utilize when I meet with people, when I ask myself, especially with staff.

[03:09:21] If I ask this question, will it hurt them? Or will it hurt our relationship? The answer is yes to either of those that don't ask the question. So the other part of this is social awareness, what's happening around me.

[03:09:41] There's a thing called tone death. Everybody knows what that is, right? Tone death, right? If something's happening and we do something or take an action that's not consistent with the needs of the people, that's considered to be tone death. We have to be able to acknowledge that these are things that are happening in certain communities that we need to be a little more sensitive to.

[03:10:04] Now, granted, if you're green, you might look at that and be like, look, you know, my dad was green, probably. He said, suck it up, buttercup, keep it going. But you have to acknowledge that those things are happening. And last but not least is relationship management.

[03:10:20] That's where you all come in. How are we building these relationships? What are we going by? I want to reiterate, I don't have to trust you. Like you, assistant with our video.

[03:10:45] So what we're going to do now, Dr. Davis is going to hand out, we got these chargers. Over here, right here.

[03:11:01] I'm going to hand one out. That's the norm. Stand up. We're going to hand that out. And this is something that we kind of look at and we're working with other organizations and every government agency. And we try to get the best of their best practices.

[03:11:19] But early on, you signed that code of conduct. And that code of conduct was great, but we wanted to focus on those three that we shared. We wanted you to focus on those three, and we wanted you to really think, could you make sure you get your speed one?

[03:11:35] I think I should have enough, right? I guess. Yeah. So why don't you take a moment, and I want you just to read over it. And we will go, and then I want to hear your thoughts on it, because this is your document.

[03:11:52] I can send it to Steve and Word, and you all can work on it, but this is about y'all. I'm going to make sure I'm going to say, it's probably not legally binding, but we really like it.

[03:12:09] I'm turning in the room, I just want to, I'm over here sweating like, whoo. It's a handshake. Yes, don't want me to clean it. Don't want me to, you know, personally do that. Don't y'all include you.

[03:12:25] What about closed sessions?

[03:13:21] Closed sessions. Oh, this includes closed sessions. that's a good question and we're going to talk about that because we can add it i like it thank you so now that the door is open let's talk about it everyone your thoughts about reading we have one suggestion and we also utilize this in closed sessions other thoughts when reading this any any heartburn uh yeah yes avoid assigning motive or intent to colleagues say that part again please avoid assigning motive or intent colleagues okay so what does that mean to you when you read that

[03:13:59] Well, I don't know. I guess I keep parsing the grammar, assigning a motive or intent. I mean, I may sit, I guess, Ashley may say something or have a position, and I may sit there and say, well, she has that position because X, Y, Z, whatever that is.

[03:14:31] There is a motive or an intent behind that. Not necessarily saying it's nefarious or improper or illegal, but it's a motivation that guides or creates a position.

[03:14:49] That's a natural part of the process. You can't legislate that out. I would say that as I look at it, I would say Ashley, speaking on behalf of her community, has this position.

[03:15:07] i'm not going to put a value to the bad behind it because that's her and she supported her positions so that's from their perspective it may not be in the life of everybody else but i don't have to put i don't have to put a um a label on it to the back or a judgment that's her position so i think when you talk about demeaning someone they thought they were saying disparaging things let me make sure i'm ready right when i look at that it says assigning a motive yeah the motive is she's supporting her people

[03:15:41] Okay, but I think what we have to be real careful about is how we characterize that. So let's capture that. Can you take a note on that one just so we can look at that? Because what other language would you recommend being that?

[03:15:57] I would actually strike it. Okay. Because I just think that's part of the process of human nature. Okay. Any other thoughts on that? Does anyone feel like it could perhaps be effective if it's a way to find a negative?

[03:16:17] Or? Well, negative is in perception, so I think it's pretty good. So, the main problem you just said is anyone feel like it could be struck? Pardon me? Do you think it could be struck anybody else? Okay.

[03:16:33] Right, exactly. So, again, we can send this to you if you're out there. So, yes, ma'am. I'm saying that right now, I don't even know why we're doing something new. I think the matter is that for me, that I felt like it was there, but it's like you need pretty pictures you know and they have it will be in practice about what was

[03:17:01] it was about no being followed or no feeling so what not but to me i don't want something new i just want to speak for all of us to at least try and yeah i don't i don't think you know maybe part of understanding this if you speak about what we talk about in 12 sessions with other people It's him in all of us, but more than that, it's him.

[03:17:33] So, I want us to be able to hear, read it, and try harder. And I would say, this is not to replace the other.

[03:17:51] The other one's still there. It has to be signed. But this speaks specifically to, we talked about behaviors and practices. So, the other document talked about what it was, but now we want to be a little bit more intentional, be more specific to this is what it looks like that's the only reason that we created this so in case somebody we are removing any level of question so now what we're trying to do is say these are the specific behaviors that support one or not i mean one pod or not that capture that leg

[03:19:01] So, thank you. So how would you define the problem?

[03:19:22] Level of verbal and no stuff. I think we're pretty good stuff. But the verbal is all verbal and no enough.

[03:19:44] Sometimes I don't want to say it's funny because it's not funny. But we have gotten to the point for some that, okay, you know, it's just, you know, we have asked the time, and it's very worth it for, you know, for some.

[03:20:06] We don't have to do it. We have to work on being respectful with each other and, you know, start with me. You know, but we, you know, we have gotten to a point that no other people are going to be going to exist, but we are going to answer.

[03:20:25] And now, some of you I can really tell you my whole thing because I've been burning people. So, just on a particular basis and working together, trying to see this perception is, you know, really understanding because of the colors, and it's not really the same thing.

[03:20:49] So, I appreciate that. So, now, this is what I do. I want to check in. So, I check in with you. Let's talk about it. How do we get to what we talked about? Can I check in with you? Um, that is.

[03:21:04] Don't forget about like some of the conversations that split the moon at least. I'd like to check in.

[03:21:38] Based on what you're hearing, tell me where you're at. Let's try. You know, we go round and round at these sessions every day.

[03:22:06] It's a difference. So, does any of this resonate with individuals?

[03:22:35] You must feel like, yeah, now the chair would be going to church. You know, so on your way, thank you. Sunday, aspire to our better angels, minister, the priest, rabbi.

[03:22:56] Not on Sunday, Saturday, aspire to our better angels there. Then we go start our work week, and people are what they are. Thanks to the Lord, we believe we are all the time,

[03:23:32] but being dedicated to taking from church the next day, not doing what we normally do, making an effort to really make, I don't know what you call that, dedicated to doing it and doing it.

[03:23:51] For me, it's that who's in the pudding. And so being able to block out noise that you hear, going to the person, whatever, talking it out and trusting that it's going to be worked out.

[03:24:08] I don't know how you button that all up. - I'm gonna, I'm gonna... - You, you button it. - You button it. - You button it. - Oh, right here, Sarah.

[03:24:26] Um, to some degree, a large degree, I agree with Sonia. For what we are, a team that is not, not a team sport.

[03:25:03] That is how a minute doesn't matter.

[03:25:26] What's your picture? Let's talk to each other.

[03:25:41] It's violent. We may sometimes not exhibit perfect behavior. Today, we have to work with folks.

[03:26:06] Boys, haters outside, the more fatherly behavior. Remember, it's crazy enough.

[03:26:26] It's not, you know, we're playing the parties. Some things, she does not, you know, I don't even ask her, because I know what she's doing. there's something that i will reach out and say hey can you support this can you get to here on this yes or no she says yes okay there's one i mean if i'm there i need two more how you get things done politically but that's not how you get things done in a military or corporate or

[03:27:01] professional setting this is radically different behaviors and makeup and that's where i sort of i appreciate the learnings and the takeaways this is not an analogous situation for those circumstances coming out of the management side of federal government senior executive side walking into

[03:27:35] counseling feel like this function is just not an analogy totally different uh in the concepts of I'm supportive of deleting that because I may say potato, you say potato, tomato, tomato.

[03:27:56] Who's going to decide who's making an assignment or so forth? I think to the opposite it goes to having me understand your view if I understand from where you're coming from. Sometimes your actions actually are taken out of context.

[03:28:17] We have to understand the context in which you do the act. For me, key things are all of the things in our whole code of conduct. Like I said earlier in reference to it, my father made us, those of you, live by code of conduct.

[03:28:39] That he was entrust by the place where he worked. So it boils down to the old, it was broader than that, but it was a basic, you know, gentleman of all time type thing.

[03:28:56] So one of the things that I was very proud of the council when I came on was that we had to individually sign that code of contact. I actually used to sign it at the beginning of our work year. One thing that's been sticking out in my mind that I feel like I've heard multiple people, I think even including you, say today is I don't have to like you to work with you or I don't have to like you to get the job done.

[03:29:30] But what has not been said is I don't have to like you to show you respect. And I think that's one struggle I'm having with any of this is, you know, yeah, we've collectively been working together.

[03:29:47] We've moved initiatives forward, you know, in a lot of different realms. But in all of these realms, are we showing each other as much respect as we can? Are we showing up on time for each other? Are we acknowledging each other's presence?

[03:30:04] Are we acknowledging, you know, whose idea what was or, you know, whatever it is? It's not enough to just get the job done if we are to build some semblance of trust, integrity, or teamwork.

[03:30:23] I think it all needs to boil down to showing each other respect. And if everybody isn't showing each other the same degree of respect in all of those realms, then this means nothing. I am in love with this group right now.

[03:30:40] The fight and the band-aid came off. We can have a real conversation. So here's what I would first say is I'm going to challenge your assumption. I'm going to challenge the assumption that another document won't help.

[03:30:57] I will also say that even with the production of that document, you begin to have conversations about what we're working with. That's collaboration. I will also say that it's good that you could have that level of conversation about that sentence topic in this space and show a level of civility.

[03:31:26] And I think that when we talk about respect, there are oftentimes you'll come across people you do not respect, but you still have to treat them with civility. So I would ask that when I think about challenging assumptions, that we don't always say that civility and respect go hand in hand.

[03:31:46] You know, they don't. But I would be civil. They tell you what I mean. I may not respect you as a person, and I may not respect your beliefs and what you stand for, but I have to be civil. Yeah, so kind of like all of you do the same thing.

[03:32:01] The bullet point that I had a question about is we speak about colleagues in a manner consistent with public service. Yeah, so what does that mean to you? I guess it depends. It just depends on what my stance on what public service is, I guess.

[03:32:19] I mean, you've got people that think public service is filled with hypocrisy and whatnot. You know, so I'm not saying that I am that, but I'm just saying like. So you have an opportunity to find that collectively, right?

[03:32:36] When we think about public service, and maybe with respect or responsibility, right, or respect, this is your document, right? One of the things that we had is the code of conduct is a standardized template. And it's been conducted by the city for many years.

[03:32:54] But when we talk about breaking out three elements of that, it really spoke to how we treat one another. And that's what we're trying to get at, is how do we treat each other in our official capacity? That what messages are we sending?

[03:33:13] Like you said, sometimes, you know, coming from a different party, I don't even go out. I'm not disrespecting, because she's in a different party. I would just say, you know what? I don't think that's a lot in line with a party now.

[03:33:29] I can challenge my assumptions and say, what do y'all think? And maybe there's a compromise, and maybe there's not. Because remember, you're looking at four. And all of you that know, Mark, he's looking for four. Is that the right number? Right?

[03:33:44] Because we had to have a conversation, but the fact that you pulled the Band-Aid off and now we're saying, hey, I hear frustration because no matter what church you go to, you come back and you feel like it's the same thing. So the question becomes, like doing that puzzle, how long are we going to keep our heads down and not find a solution?

[03:34:07] So you can bring your head up and say, hey, here's another thing that we can do. Let's give it a shot. Let's figure out what we need to do or this is not what we want to do and what's the other solution.

[03:34:26] Because clearly when I talk about, you know, you talk about trust, you talk about respect. Let me tell you, trust is a fragile thing. And once it's broken, it's hard to think that. It'll never look the same way it was before. Never. With a piece of paper, I can ball it up and say, here's trust.

[03:34:44] And you say, I need a piece of paper. And I just try to wrinkle it out. It's full of wrinkles. It's done. I hate to say I'm blue and do them, but that's what it is. So now we need to figure out how do we create a space where we can have some practices and some behaviors that are consistent with your team, our team, your team.

[03:35:04] How do we better start the community? That's what this is all about. That's just, when you think about a team building, it's about establishing this culture within this body of how we get things done and how we treat them. So I'll pause if you hear any thoughts on that.

[03:35:21] Mark, where do you think? Well, you talked about trust. Me, trust is the commitments.

[03:35:39] Okay. Policy sense. When I have a conversation and someone says, I'm one of the four, and at the last minute, not.

[03:35:59] Me, then I've lost trust. Okay. Because I've counted on that. Because normally this involves communication back and forth. Okay, we've got the core and then all of a sudden we don't.

[03:36:21] And I'll be honest, I take some of that personal. And I also realize it's human nature and they have the absolute right to change their mind. But that's how I process.

[03:36:44] And like a person, I mean, I'm not going to deal with their stuff, but do I have the same level of trust going forward certainty i guess is another way to put it no i don't um and then you can vary on issue to issue season to season uh that's that's how i process it but at the same

[03:37:13] time i mean it's theresa as the example i think i you know i i work to know where everyone i think is going to be at i don't want to put someone in a false position so sometimes i may not ask reason because i don't want to put her in a bad position to have to say no to me um and and i'm probably 99 sure where she's going to be and for us the group we're all you know all in the same political party well at that point what happens in politics universally is then you start fragmenting

[03:37:53] within your you know within the party and different people on the spectrum on different views and you and you still gotta get to four. Otherwise, nothing gets done. - Right, you said something about Toronto. I mean, again, if you lose some of that, I thought it was the first to gain that person.

[03:38:11] - Oh, I, it's a matter of gain. Like you said, it's the crumpled paper. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna talk to that person, you know. Again, there's only the seven of us, and only six of us really get to vote, so it's a pretty small group.

[03:38:37] But I will say within the group, there are people that when they tell me something, I know, and I can set it aside. And then there are some that I sometimes don't know. It depends on the issue.

[03:38:56] And that's also human nature. Deal with it and move on. That's the origin. I think that you can respect people without trusting them fully or even, like, at all.

[03:39:17] I mean, I think you can just still be respectful in the public and out of the public. The other thing I'm going to throw in, though, it also comes back to experience together. and I said this publicly, I have a relationship with Ashley and Tom that I can never have with anyone else because I've run elections.

[03:39:40] And we've been through things together, and Michelle, to agree that until you've done that experience, that fire, the electoral process, I've never run an election abroad.

[03:39:57] I don't have that experience. Would you like to... Yes. Yes, I would. Well, you know, I appreciate you sharing that, right? That we talked, and I just wanted to, before I engage in, I want to check in with more people.

[03:40:15] So what are your thoughts? This is our time to just be open. I think I told you when we were talking. I actually do feel like I could pick up the phone and talk to anyone on this council, which I don't do that often, but I think that I can, which is interesting because the people that came before me in my party, They thought I was crazy when I said I could do that.

[03:40:45] They're like, you actually pick up the... Yeah, I do. Well, first of all, I have to because I'm kind of by myself. But, you know, I think a lot of times I feel like there's a lot...

[03:41:01] And Mark basically said, you know, he won't call me if he feels like his is four. And I feel like, darn, I wish he would have called me. You know? Well, you know, and you have been better about that. But because sometimes I don't know where everyone is.

[03:41:17] And I'm like, I should have picked it now. I should have did it. And, you know, I'm taking that as my responsibility. It's not their responsibility. And I will just add in. Yeah, I haven't been there so long without naming names. Teresa will pick up the phone and call me and ask me a question or raise an issue.

[03:41:39] People analogous to Teresa in the past would never have done so, ever. They would have rather died than the phone and call me. Oh, three other states.

[03:41:55] Are you? Yes, that's true. Well, a couple of things.

[03:42:20] So, first of all, I was thinking, you know, we talk about issues, sometimes in closed session, especially at times, or we'll air about stuff in closed session. And so one of my frustrations is that at times we are asked to come to some kind of consensus in a very short period of time.

[03:42:52] I have found that frustrating. So for me, my resolution for 2026 is that I'm going to often just say, I need more time. It's going to be very frustrating to the rest of you and frustrating to the city manager.

[03:43:14] But the next two days, we're going to hear a bunch of things that for me will either be new or want some guidance on. And I'm not prepared to do that because, well, I'm a green. And in green, I'm somewhat deliberative and I have all I've been to talk to.

[03:43:35] I'm going to mow it over. And that really came to light over a recent issue here where I thought I had a position and then I had a chance to think it over. I was exposed to other information. I then proceeded to start talking to other people on council, just one-on-one, and starting to reach a different conclusion along the way here.

[03:44:07] And I think that's one of the things I think we should all be prepared for, is that we come up with some thoughts, but along the way we may change our position. And I tried to share that with some people, counsel, or let them know or talk things through so that talk about it, but also got feedback along the way about, you know, have you considered this, what about that, these possibilities, in that regard.

[03:44:45] Similar to Ashley on your one here, we avoid public commentary that unnecessarily implains internal conflict. Sort of to Mark's point here, these are political positions here, and there are campaigns that are run.

[03:45:07] And a sense that if you're talking about in the capacity of an elected official, yes, but i will tell you that we're all political we we you know all have candidates that we support and so in the sense of public commentary i fully expect that i will be called on the carpet by political opponents the opposite party when i run for re-election and uh some questions you know

[03:45:44] pointing out why you voted this way or did that or this and that along the way um that's that does that cause internal conflict with me well i have to be really good at separating the two so whoever saying that on council and the opposite party about me when i'm running i have to recognize that that's part of the that's the nature of that that process that political process

[03:46:17] However, they have to understand that in return, that will happen or could happen to them as well. But I, and that happens, I always look forward and what have you. But I praise that because that hasn't always been the case here.

[03:46:36] I think on council, we have to have thick skins. We get a lot of, a lot of information and we get a lot of direction and a lot of comments. And I can't take it personally, though at times.

[03:46:53] Here's some of the things that I hear, recognizing the amount of time, effort, outreach that takes place, that those doing the criticism, even those on council at times who might criticize me, don't see because I'm not out there laying it all out and saying, hey, by the way, before I vote, you want to know?

[03:47:23] So I've talked to all these people and these groups and on and on. And by the way, I've had X number of hours I've spent on this issue and so forth and so on. I think all of us as a group really think and lead for the city.

[03:47:45] I know that every day, even when, let's say over the holidays, I was still thinking about issues in the city. Things coming up, budgets, you know, all that sort of stuff. It's not a bad thing, but when I think about how much time I do and all these things are over and think about them, those are not things that other people necessarily say, but I truly believe that this council does no different thing.

[03:48:22] People, when they walk out that door, are no longer thinking about the city until the next council meeting, the next work session, the next retreat, that kind of stuff along the way. What I heard you say, when elections come up, not given no or or validated or i'm not sure how you said it but i i would just say this that i remember one of my one of my um proudest political moments is john mccain

[03:48:58] someone was speaking maybe about his opponent he said no man i'm not going to let you say i know him maybe competing against him but i'm not going to let you say that right and i think as we look at it there is politics but we also have to have a level of commitment to our peers in this space to say i'm with you i'm against him or her however i'm not going i'm not going to support this

[03:49:34] this foolishness or this other and it may not be totally true i will speak to the facts that's all well and and that's what i what i meant is okay i so i'm running for real so what

[03:49:49] I'm running for re-election. I've taken a series of votes and a member of council on the opposite party posts saying that Osina guy, he voted to raise your taxes. He voted to raise your taxes and here's the proof.

[03:50:14] He's not making a personal bad person, per se, but that's what I mean. That sort of thing. In a political realm, that's going to happen. We expect that to happen, and it's my job to be able to explain it, to defend that.

[03:50:35] But in turn, I have the same opportunity to say, person, work with uncounseled here, but is of the opposite party, and has done votes of things that I think are very, very important to call those out as well.

[03:50:57] I'm not saying that person's a bad person. And I'm saying their actions, they voted too, you know, to raise taxes, as an example. And there's a game of politics on that. So in reference to the one on number five, all I'm saying there, that we distinguish between, and I recognize as long as we understand, you know, this document is referencing our behavior, As a council, as the elected official, not as a political creature running, you know, in campaigns, that sort of thing.

[03:51:37] That's all. I appreciate that. Okay. That's where it's moving. That's all. No. Story thoughtless. No. It's all. When somebody, we needed to have this conversation.

[03:51:54] Oh, great. I don't, I think for me, it is the, it's just politics. I have a hard time separating people that are on top running. You can't just say it's just politics when you're at someone's character.

[03:52:19] There's more than just politics. So that's where I have a hidden head because it hurts. I'm not doing it to you. It's to deal with it.

[03:52:38] So trying to understand when you say it's just politics. I'm not at that place. I don't think I'll never understand that. That's not where I'm intentional trying to win or support somebody else's running.

[03:52:57] To me, it's unnecessary, this or that. When you're right and careful, personally, you're still separating that.

[03:53:14] That's even part of the conversation of behavior, but this is somebody that the election's over, now I've got to work with you. I don't know what you did. It's hard to let it go, at least for me, but I'm a working partner. Right. And I appreciate the vulnerability, right?

[03:53:32] When we open up like that and we share it and we have conversations. You know, we talk about these documents, this document. And even if there's only one area per section, or we go back and you have a meeting and you just mail it off, there's value in having track and safety.

[03:53:55] It's important. Only because we, and especially if you do it collectively, so this was our graph to give to you to play with and to continue to work on it.

[03:54:13] And come into a level of consensus. Say, this is how we're going to play. I would ask you just to consider it. Challenge your assumptions. These are the conversations that need to happen. They're not comfortable, right?

[03:54:29] They're not comfortable, but they are ones that hopefully lead to an opportunity for dialogue. Just like I walked around with the map, with the answers to the puzzle, and we didn't look up.

[03:54:45] We need to look up. This is a chance to look up. But here's what I would say, and I would push back to those in this space, is you can't ask for it. You can't totally define the problem if you won't be a part of the solution. I would ask if you could just, you know, you can't continuously say the sky is falling and you're not doing the same.

[03:55:07] You have to be engaged. You have to be a part of that solution. And just like in your political events, even if it's not something that needs to be resolved today, you can't give up on it. You can't leave an existence with false assumptions.

[03:55:31] It can get better. It will get better. It's a matter of just what are you willing to do to make it better. Is that fair enough? Now the next piece, we have one more element. So this is for you, individually.

[03:55:50] You can do what you want to with it. I would ask if you would fill it out, and if you give it back to us, oh, I'm sorry. Nobody else will see it, but that envelope that you did earlier, this will be mailed back to you in 30 days.

[03:56:10] 30 days. Oh, no, I took the envelope. I took the envelope. I'll be right back. Oh, okay. All right. You know what? Let's take a five-minute break, and everybody's on the same level. I'd break all right. Yeah. I'd break all right. Yes. All right. If I can get your attention, please.

[03:56:27] And, you know, earlier I shared a story. Earlier I shared a story, and one of the things I do is the fellow military person, we pay homage to those who made the ultimate sacrifice. So I wanted to acknowledge our mayor, son, is a gold star mother.

[03:56:43] So thank you for your... Mr. Wood. Mr. Wood. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, thank you for your family service and sacrifice. Yes, sir. Thank you. So as we move forward, we have the last document. I handed it out, right? and if you would, you'd like to have that back to that so you can know.

[03:57:04] That's what our name on it? Well, I'm going to come by one by one and just give you the envelope and you can put it inside. I have the envelopes. All right, so we work on this now? You can work on that right now. I'll give you about five minutes. I'll give you back your envelopes.

[03:57:20] You can throw them on and give them back to me. There's one, two, three.

[04:00:21] Okay.

[04:01:11] How are we doing all?

[04:04:53] When you're done, let me know. I'll come grab your envelopes.

[04:06:21] will want to open it

[04:07:00] make sure that you're a partner he'll rip it open nothing sacred he'll open it up I wrote on the back side, I love you.

[04:07:37] Who is this? Say a letter to myself. You can only hope. She's hiding it somewhere. I'm in trouble. Did I get a letter? Particularly in politics. You won't love yourself.

[04:07:53] No one won't.

[04:08:14] So, earlier, we went over hopes and fears, right?

[04:09:09] So what you hope you get out of it, so I just want to check in, right, just want to check in and see if your hopes are, if we, just your hopes are, got your fears. So the first one was, nice dinner later.

[04:09:26] TBD. Still open. Still, still open. All right. And the fear was the group won't be more open to, for. Communication won't be more open upon leaving today. The communication won't be more open.

[04:09:43] So is that a hope or a fear? Which one was Mac? I don't know about dinner yet. You don't know about dinner, but? Steve, I'm sweating it right now. The communication might be more open. Okay, good. Awesome. All right. And it says here, leave feeling more connected slash open communication.

[04:10:01] Okay, we're good there? Okay. Come work together. Come work together better. I think we're getting there. It's a start. All right. Residents get to see the governing body as they are versus rumors.

[04:10:19] you think it's good it was good well it certainly did today all right they did today good um want to i can't read your hand want to continue getting things done continue to be a unit with integrity and determination Learn more about each person Strengthen relationships as a body

[04:10:58] And come together as a united front Fears, you said the first one already Second one Two people said Busyness can prevent them from bonding And just concerns about Kind of unspoken, non-verbals dividing them Did it come to fruition?

[04:11:21] Did that fear come to fruition? I think people were mostly engaged Okay, next one people not sharing the things that need to be shared. Do you think we overcame that fear? I think people are? All right, and then not staying focused.

[04:11:40] I think people stay focused. So before I do the last quote, I have a hundred of them, but I'm going to just go do one. I just want to go around the road again real quickly and check this out. So is there going to tell what you want? You want to tell me more? I'm fine.

[04:11:59] Fine. Encourage? Appreciate it. Appreciate it. um satisfied that's fine laughter don't know don't know like okay that's the start so let me let me share this with you insight i love this quote insight without action changes nothing but insights here with attention can change everything so now we know right you have a document whether

[04:12:37] you get that done or not an agreement is up to you whether the requirement is not a part of your But if you seek the change that you want to seek change, you have to really work to get it done.

[04:12:52] You have to be intentional in it after. You have to work together. What we focus on today is not so much trust. We focus today on behaviors and practices. I like the spin on respect. I also think it's important to have to know how we move forward.

[04:13:15] So, nothing else I would ask that if something were to happen. Because over the next couple of months, the next four or five months, you have access to us. to us you can call you have time on the book we have office hours we're here to talk but i would hope that you will be able to say to one another if something goes away or something you don't like if you find something disrespectful you're better than that say you're better than that but you do nothing else and i can just walk away right you're better than that because we we were in this space

[04:13:54] together we are looking at some assumptions and then hopefully if i say actually you're better than that and then we can have that conversation how do you mean by that actually this is what i heard you say. Is that your intent? Oh my God, I did not mean to say it that way.

[04:14:10] Let's have a conversation. Go out of the way. I may not believe you. Believe in a conversation. At least you know next time Ashley, if I say that to Al, he's going to say I'm better than that. So I'm not going to say it to Al again because I don't want to hear you better.

[04:14:30] Alright, so that concludes our portion for the day. I wish you all the best for the rest of the week. I wish you fun snowboarding on Sunday. And Mr. Pittsburgh, thank you the city there for this opportunity all take care definitely appreciate the next item that we were

[04:15:03] hoping to get just get some feedback to council ahead of where we're going as far as either new projects continued projects budget goals and i will preface that by tomorrow's discussion about where we're at budget-wise won't be very positive.

[04:15:27] A lot of new things, new offenses that Ann will share with you tomorrow are unforeseen.

[04:15:42] Social services picked up a second child for out of the day.

[04:15:59] Instead of that, if we could, if you were wondering, actually, you had sent an amendment to Matt and I about looking at putting in a housewalk in Flasher for an area that you were aware of in Jackson High School.

[04:16:38] if there's things like that if we will be going fix that already just a second round about starting

[04:16:51] construction didn't go into sleep but if there's things aspirational projects or just budget goals

[04:17:26] or concerns please that we want to give you all time to talk about um one concept that i believe sanya has brought up is the is adding sidewalks in old town to get to access 28 so whether it's whether it's that or somewhere else i think we need to be proactive about sidewalks from the mathis shopping from the our future redeveloped mathis um i think we just need to if we can even

[04:18:02] get that walking infrastructure in place before we even start filling anything out there this would be a positive move forward um similarly is there any way that we can get a walking path or a walking bridge or something that the landing people that live in the landing can walk the peace island somehow like how can they cross the highway i don't know there's something that gets

[04:18:31] them accessible to that getting directed well we can look into it well we can look at that it may not be as direct a route but we can look at and again it might simply be is there a way of

[04:19:05] getting from university boulevard crossing over 28 in the city and it may not be the easiest route but it's the route that we could at least facilitate so yeah definitely look at that yeah to that i actually came up yesterday the innovation district discussion about

[04:19:29] how new town center and the fact that none of it from i had wanted you know i would have hoped we

[04:20:02] could have the discussion that's probably the second thing and just play smart for dates process

[04:20:42] state personal property and i know it's a separate discussion issue yeah and that's just we might be we'll be able to do out of three, but we'll get into- - Well, and again, we'll look more detail in that, and I understand that, but I also realize we are gonna have negative news with regard to utilities.

[04:21:22] That's foregone completion. We'll have to see. Jump up downstream, I'll start.

[04:21:37] - I know that the place is holding in or is it not how it is about these social premises, there's, what are we talking, $300,000 deficit right now, three million, three million deficit,

[04:22:12] But we're serious with the unknown of the rest of the need. We don't expect it to come from the city. By the way, the state is $1.5 million less than what we are.

[04:22:34] Council will be forced to double-charge the service fee if we hold hard on the cost of the city.

[04:23:06] Do we charge it when they pay license? - Yes, it's a convenience fee. - Maybe it's necessary, but we can just put a quantitative amount of the city.

[04:23:36] - We are looking. social services stuff i know it's yeah the magnitude is such really clear public prisons amounts issues and the whys so explaining to the public why do we have to provide for this child

[04:24:10] that child i have local dollars yeah um the other non-negative side information that's probably

[04:24:54] just returning one thing to the social this is down the line with particular with regards to legislature when we meet with our developers start working at the position on providing a facility and everything that would help us with that fees we have to pay to hire I was going to be a fan here at Swoonham and their development.

[04:25:32] It is no old town, it's in a little place like here, there's a food and everything like that.

[04:25:45] There are things, those are from the businesses.

[04:26:45] But my concern is that they are not able to see also, you know, over that. I feel like a lot of this is a lot of stuff. Yeah, you know, if you're already doing it, it's a little reason to go on that.

[04:27:06] I've definitely been calling for one extra person

[04:27:09] for the building home and work in a working party more specific to our nervous of person

[04:28:01] or if there's a change of duties but i would like to see a known tree sometimes when i call the line that there is a tree that you have to take to who you're looking for instead of talking to somebody and not anybody has no other issues i always give calls saying you know on the phone number for the pressure or the phone number or you know someone is specific i don't know if everybody else is both like that but you know to me it's a great joy that i can you know fulfill that but i'm like even though we have a main number is that you know well maintained or whatever i don't know

[04:28:40] we don't want to bring it is because i don't know if it's um a request to change or a request for

[04:28:46] So you're asking specifically right now about projects that we have had to add.

[04:30:22] And I'm assuming we're going to have more about the deficits and the budget besides the one example that you gave.

[04:30:30] The plan is to, and Diane has been working very well and she's got some good graphics that are depressing, but we're at an order of magnitude further into the details, and I don't mean to be doomed and think we will budget most of what staff has been asking for, specifically making sure that the essential services that Vescoz Luna was talking about aren't met.

[04:31:09] It's just that you will probably hear that there are a number of necessary items to each department that may not necessarily be able to do requests that may not necessarily make it into our budget.

[04:31:25] I just wanted to clarify. Why are we going to get into it without knowing really? And honestly, that will be part of the end conversation that we have. The way that we structure or schedule our retreats, we're not in as good a position to provide y'all with a better idea of the budget.

[04:31:53] So we'd like to talk with y'all if that's something that you would want to consider until we've presented the budget and you've got a better idea. But that will be a discussion. Well, because you mentioned the Social Security. Did you say there was a $3 million deficit for Social Security only?

[04:32:11] Social Services. Social Services. I'm sorry, Social Services. It's about that. - That's estimated, that's an estimate. - Classes going out of state, is that correct? - For two schools. - There's nothing in state.

[04:32:27] Is that why the state won't pick it up? - It's very, from what I understand, and unfortunately, due to the HIPAA stuff, they don't tell us what the needs are, but we understand that it's such special services that there's only a few institutions in the country that are able to provide the care that's required.

[04:32:47] we can talk to our state representatives about yes i think that would be something again if they would assist in providing their visiting facility or expanding the services provided by a new facility to keep the funding in the state so uh i'd like us sometime during

[04:33:16] the retreat to visit the uh i don't want to call it decision but uh the position of the public relations bilingual public relations person and discuss how that is being filled and what would be consensus of council at least what what we would expect that to be here secondly i would be the second year specifically i can remember my perspective is is that as the

[04:33:56] city manager you put together a proposed budget having this retreat gives you some guidance but you've been working on along with the staff on this budget for some time and so there have Oregon hopefully and I have a lot of decisions made so because you're going to be presenting this budget at the end of your proposed budget our last meeting in February so whatever we talk about here is more some guidance but you know decisions have been made here what I would hope however is

[04:34:33] that I believe that it is council's duty to make the decisions as to what to add or delete in your job city managers based on everything you know put together a budget realistically say for this budget to take place it has to be at this tax rate uh based on all available knowledge at that time because then why else are we having 10 to 13 work sessions to do stuff uh if for all intents and

[04:35:06] purposes uh you've done everything and what's our our function here so i would hope that you would not shoehorn your budget into the current tax rate and give us a realistic look at you know these are things what we've got to have or must do that sort of thing you know what based on what we know about revenue and expenditures the tax rate to support this has to be that which leads me to my last point is I think we should realistically talk not at this session

[04:35:44] because really there wouldn't be much to talk about but in the future uh about cuts and by that i mean and again hoarding and not quitting just shooting from the hip here whether any kind of hiring freeze is necessary as we move forward delaying equipment or vehicle purchases along the way and to me those are the things where i see my function as a member of council guiding you know

[04:36:17] making those decisions or recommendations along with others as to having that discussion because that way we say to our residents and our businesses you know we've looked at a variety of different things we would do nothing less than that in our own personal finances something came up we would seriously look at what we could cut and some sometimes you know at home we make those cuts

[04:36:47] and things that or delayed purchases you know the furnace the car the roof whatever but anyway that that would be my hope that the most important one being i want a budget that you and your good judgment based on everything that you know along with the staff input and so forth and what you hear from us the next two days this is what the budget how it could be supported financially we as council decide because as the political body decide whether that's good bad and then

[04:37:29] first is the legislative breakfast there's been discussion about possibly not having it as a breakfast but possibly a lunch or dinner to allow additional people to attend both delegates from may or may not have visit the school board has also talked about trying to do that there's also

[04:38:08] been a from the schools to alternate having the schools be the post if you will for the legislative event in the next year the council be the host so just wanted to have discussion with you know if there's any desire to change to possibly consider legislative lunch legislative dinner and to work with the schools to have them be take more of the alternate my question would be to be

[04:38:47] question to ask is what is the what time would ensure as the best success of having our delegate and state senator attend? First of all, to me that that should be the top criteria, not what's convenient for me. Lunch is better, you know, fine. Dinner, in that regard, having alternating locations, fine, when I say

[04:39:25] locations hosts host yes would it be in the same spot i thought not the same spot but just baby yeah fine by name do we know we know what's the optimal time to get our legislators well we will we will reach out to them again this was i did i have talked to um and wrong they said that they can make it happen at any time but talking to their choose a staff it is kind of difficult for

[04:40:04] They're open to any time we select, but there is some difficulty. But if y'all are open, we will reach out to them and get a more definitive time.

[04:40:26] July 1 is to report on what happened.

[04:40:45] Point of order. I don't take notes, so I don't know. She took her notes. Let me get my notebook, either one. - Hey, Ralph, Sonja took notes on your pad. They're just in Spanish.

[04:41:03] They're all in Spanish though, sorry. - I have a translator built in. - Oh, all right. - Thank you, I appreciate it. - Okay. - So you all were interested in that? - I went to this great note taken up and I'm sitting there not taking notes. - Why is it, I guess, do you know what to, not against the schools being the host, but what difference would it make?

[04:41:25] - I think the only difference would it make their priorities before the city so those are you know those are the two things i mean if they are

[04:41:59] not available why are we having two and uh you know that would be the first one if it's you know they think you could see us you know down there you know maybe we need to go back to one and i think that for us if they do a little bit too or they do you know it doesn't change i think council wouldn't necessarily see a change this is more so logistically the school board would be handling like the food to set up behind the scenes i don't

[04:42:34] know if companies actually see a forward-facing change on the way that we be presented but this is more of them handling from what i've been discussing how it was more so handling the set up setting up the chamber or the museum i don't know if it all falls on us yeah right now

[04:43:03] to do it all the time i don't know again just to share how we are but it's simply a request that

[04:43:22] the schools put forward a lunch time is better i think most of us have more flexibility of our professional works than we put those on the school board necessarily do so um but echoing house events you know whatever the delegate and senate if i want that

[04:43:59] this is a we it was thinking about you might even have this before but if we're going to do two and it's going to change for the evening when all the questions are beginning to stay with

[04:44:28] this and also is the business appreciation breakfast um there too i know that there's a desire to to do greater outreach for the release for me i didn't know everyone understood

[04:45:06] how that process works i thought it would be good to state it like how do we decide who gets invited who's doing it who's and i know economic development i know that but just more information because and i know i didn't know for a long time and i wouldn't but why ask that um basically economic development keeps a list of businesses when when asked simply pull a list of the

[04:45:44] holders problematic because we don't tend to invite the home-based business thought has always been to invite brick and mortar so a little more problematic for them they try to change that list

[04:46:12] of brick and mortar all of those that are on their list get an economic development didn't want to

[04:46:46] characterize it that small local business versus like collaborations like that one i don't know i I don't know.

[04:47:24] Not invite like chain restaurants and invite like. Yeah, if there's a local. If there's a local invited, folks get invited. If we have a local. It's in the show. Yeah, if we have a local address for them, we will send it to the local address.

[04:47:45] I don't think we send to a corporate address just because the thought is, is that the chances of somebody, yeah, I think it is better that we send it only to the, if we have a local address. Yeah, the chances of someone being a representative.

[04:48:09] I think what they do is they try to track when new businesses come online. Yes, I think there is coordination there.

[04:48:24] The question is, well, why can't we simply pull the database of everyone that has a business license to be invited? They try to keep it to the brink.

[04:48:46] The place, because you're talking about business. Yes, how do you, how do you get the chance to begin on? Manasseh, Manasseh's award, you know.

[04:49:05] I'm not 100% certain.

[04:49:30] I think what happens is our economic development department receives a team that were nominated to the chamber. If there were businesses in the city that weren't selected for one of the core chamber groups, they give us that list and development for that.

[04:50:06] We can investigate that more, select city businesses that weren't selected for.

[04:50:25] I know the council is the attorney, the clerk, and city manager, and he's refused to come in tomorrow's closed session.

[04:50:54] I mean, since the attorney, we're in, but we still do, will we still do one for Mr. Brown? It would be if I wanted to, since third or fourth quarter, I'm in February.

[04:51:35] And we're doing anything as far as a new.

[04:52:00] the other side, you know, fighting for warfare, you know, knowing the management side, even though I'm a manager, I'd like to see if, you know, we have new, you know, we come together on a home, whether it's in the newly elected package, or for us, you know, independently, They really have something from the HR department showing us how they do it, especially the top.

[04:52:38] I don't want to see, like, you know, one of the managers review, but I do want to see the process. I feel like seeing that more defined process. We have a whole HR department, and, you know, we don't get support to it through our creative reviews.

[04:52:56] and maybe we don't want to be able to give my best so something that mirrors what our what hr does for council you want to see that happen yeah i don't want to show the extended process but you know sometimes you are uh you have different characters or you have different things that you're trying to achieve and i don't feel that we have we do agree that but we haven't told we're always

[04:53:35] i think it's more like this yes and and even then that's not something you know

[04:54:04] well then someone formally and they decided well if this is the route you're going to go let's get an outside facilitator if you'll recall yeah that that alone had some experience

[04:54:38] in doing these here and further sort of his perspective as to what's an effective way of doing

[04:54:48] that you have any project here i'm sure that person's thesis which he understands what it is

[04:55:34] we expect him also that we won't be asking him why did he get this done never told him to get the file so have a soul and don't call it a contract but sometimes then we also need

[04:55:59] Part and parcel of that, they ended up with a valuation of the points to it and show it to it.

[04:56:27] And I'm not sure if you recognize the point of that, by the way, but true fault policy.

[04:56:57] You can see what's happening here is coming, having a form, having a process going, and not just a memo that somebody talked, that they did a great job.

[04:57:17] I want to see the goals next, not even where you have, you know, accomplishments. I didn't see. I mean, just basically, I just want to avoid things that I felt like I said, As long as I ask them to call me, they call me, you know, those kind of stuff like that.

[04:57:39] We'd like to avoid those charges.

[04:57:50] Well, yeah, and that, be sure that, you know, we've got the vote on the good housing coming up.

[04:58:14] Sorry, it's candy now. We may have a good time. You know, moving ahead, we're going to look for opportunities to include attainable housing in, for instance, what happens on the Memphisville property, that it's possible.

[04:58:32] Certainly, we've talked about it over in Mathis Avenue, but, you know, other things along the way. Something the vice mayor had talked about is we can always do a piece of that. That's certainly a help as opposed to, you know, a big project like the good housing one at this point.

[04:58:50] The area, you know, what we're talking about at Mathis would be of some size in that regard. So, we haven't really visited with one another about our thoughts about what's the future.

[04:59:06] where else do you think would be going with attainable housing if anybody had any? On that, I'll defer them to one specific question. My question is to understand that housing and value for the Sunset Day.

[04:59:26] It was established with a one-year just to see how it performs if council wants to continue it. So, yes, sir, and nothing that would prevent y'all from reappointing everyone and continuing it. But it was simply established to give the city an opportunity to evaluate it.

[04:59:44] That's fine. I won't propose anything again as long as we're going to look at potential. The final product of the current Housing Advisory Board that it's constituted will be a report with recommendations on what, you know, not just rentals, which we've been talking about, but also homeownership, existing programs.

[05:00:05] So that, I think it's on track for fall of 26. We'll get a full report from that board, probably also a recommendation on what the board thinks it's worth continuing to do. I think the city is putting forth effort for sustainable housing, so it seems like the first time would be a big, big push.

[05:00:33] I think that's a special thing that we've been working on. I think as we move forward, then housing development, certain things that we can add to your point will be important. It's going to take a while, people who have been working on time, so we won't be able to fix Northern Virginia.

[05:01:04] Sustainable housing, affordable housing, even housing, but I do believe all together in the county is going to make a difference. Within that, there is a board who I'm concerned about, the income flow, but I want to do where there is a one-time money.

[05:01:31] or for that to be a priority in the future because there is no need for us to have a lot of needs and to have, you know, our heart, mind, and soul, and this, because there is no that.

[05:02:03] I know that you can, I know there's a place where I would like to see that, too, for the economic development board.

[05:02:26] I know back in the day there were some issues about them, they have to be so, so for them to have their master's or their, if they need it, or they have their carry on with their duty.

[05:02:43] I'm not saying you have to complete right now the difference of what's going on, but if things go back to the way before they start, they are working on. Also, we want to make sure that they have what they need to be expected, and not only thousands of dollars, which means they know what they're doing.

[05:03:07] I know people take great pride in serving, and it is, you know, a big volunteer, but I just want to make sure that they have the minimum necessary for them to do.

[05:03:23] And then the proclamation process, I think there's a, the council has established a process where basically the proclamation staff would prefer today's advance notice to include it.

[05:04:03] I know that there's always going to be the exception, but just so that we could establish a little protocol to allow us time to prepare and make sure that the wording is correct and to ensure that the group that is looking to be, the group or individual that's looking to be recognized, We can make sure that they're available to attend.

[05:04:30] We can have online the actual requests that they can access. But we hope to be able to do this. No, it's, again, just trying to make sure that there's a reasonable expectation that last minute with the council we can typically work with you,

[05:05:09] but we would hope that that would be more the exception than the norm.

[05:05:12] You know, everybody stuff, they pretty much do it for me, like, you know, I'm stable, but they don't have it.

[05:06:06] Yeah, and we also have to do the same process that if we are able to join, or how, I know the ones here in the agenda, it's going to be too late, but it's very, like, a master.

[05:06:29] I know the ones I do, I have an idea with you, but for the ones that we don't, I'm not going to throw it up because we, you know, get it together, but how we go about it, you know.

[05:06:49] Maybe you have one, but you know, I know people that they were like, even if it's a stand-up mix, but to me that is a try, there are three cases, and some of you wish for four things, and you know, and, you know, work with you, you know, and, um, so, on a list of the moments, of the ones that you know, history, and like that, and March, and that's the day, and so I don't think we do have that, but we'll go to the end of the world.

[05:07:26] I've never seen normally do it. I know we just throw something in there. Oh, yeah, we've seen the trafficking.

[05:07:44] We did it, I think, 20, so then we hadn't done it. And so then we just did it, but I wouldn't have thought about it. If she hadn't reached out, you know, and that's what I'm saying. So, like, how do we know how to do it and do it in advance?

[05:08:03] Because sometimes they have days where 11th was the day. Well, it was after the day because it was the 12th, but still we got it done in January. but it was really hurry and hurry and we got it but we don't want it to be like that if we can but that list will definitely help so we can claim and have our people understand maybe the issue to that list not just what happens every year but maybe what's taken place in the past five eight years or something that look them up yeah look them up some of them are

[05:08:38] just one off that you wouldn't want sure you know not just even make the list but like maybe to have like a oh this is you go to like a holiday calendar and there's like established weeks you know multiple for every single week or whatever of the year you know so maybe just to see what has already existed as almost like a one in the play i do think that's a good idea to share the list with all of us because we can also invite people like when the agenda comes out you

[05:09:15] know a couple days before it's hard to get people there you know that would be great and i i don't know how to ask for one that there's like yeah that there's a topic like if somebody calls you up and i would love to do a proclamation then he reaches out because they have to come up with their word and he works with them on how that's what you want to say so that's basically taking you out of it that you're pointing them to him so he can help them get the right wording and get

[05:09:55] everything done the proper way that way we keep track who's involved who needs to come who needs to invite i like to do the reserve seating and make sure that we have make it real special for people when they do come so i was going to say sometimes the organizations will have a template for a proclamation like if you do you know the american ice association or something you wouldn't do like eye health or something um and also i think even the federal government has a lot of templates for the national and you can just duplicate it really you know and add a little

[05:10:30] bit of local stuff yeah oh i just wanted is that established criteria or you have to kind of request and then take it out. So the documentation of what it's vigorous is to celebrate events and increase awareness on the individuals that have given the same manassas on the next few events, but it's somewhere.

[05:11:06] We have some general discussion or council time for y'all to provide comments.

[05:11:22] Is that the beginning of the meeting? Their desire to move so that if there's things that occur during that you'd be able to. I was at a meeting and one council member had said we had never done this in the city but they said they moved their council time after public comment time and give you all kind of a chance to respond to what people are saying and i thought oh no so

[05:11:57] i just said see let's throw that on the agenda and throw it out there so it's not it was just i had never thought about that i know you always say at the end of the meeting is there any for the greater good yeah and i always took that as if you wanted to respond to something that's how i That's why it wasn't okay, but that's at the end and you know, so just throw it up there for helping's sake.

[05:12:28] For me, I'm like, I don't know how to bring him. I don't want to move out because I think it's when we have the most.

[05:12:47] The majority of the attendees. And not only that, a lot of times, that time, it gives people time to arrive because they do think about 5:30. And sometimes, you know, depending on how full it is, it's harder to get parts, and then I have to, you know, be alive a little bit for that culmination of the proclamation.

[05:13:11] So I really like for us to be, you know, where we are. I do want, you know, the public comment, you know, to come up. But I do understand what I'm saying. I mean, you know, I understand, you know, what they say to say. But, you know, before we take both and before we make a change, And we're able to, you know, after the hearing is closed, we don't hear them anymore.

[05:13:46] My last, before I finalize my decision, it's before I hit the meeting because I check on my list. And I read them, you know, to make sure that it's something that I'm going to vote on. I need to have better than I know. So, you know, don't have experience in a lot of other places.

[05:14:04] But that is something that I have in my heart that I wanted to bring it up. That will be something you'll be willing to do before we get to both to allow, you know, what we have to move it to populations and, you know, the way we have it, I'm just, you know, we are ready to do.

[05:14:33] I think I should not comment on that comment. I was just going to say that the school board has public comment time at the beginning of their meeting.

[05:14:51] Now, they need to start at 6, but, you know, at the beginning of their meeting, the school board, maybe the school board member comments at the end and wrap up everything that's happened to the point here. So I think there are advantages and disadvantages.

[05:15:11] How many people hear it, see it, that kind of thing is more effective. What is an effective way of that?

[05:15:38] Recognizing that there could be a lot of comments and therefore the rest of the business of the meeting goes on, leaving it the way it is and so forth. I think it's worth, right now, a way to talk it over since it's now been put out.

[05:15:55] You know, because everybody's going to have, you know, residents will have different points of view. Work, do get off work, I'd like to get back home, I this, that. Back in the day when Vice Baker was on, there was a time certain, wasn't there?

[05:16:16] And then I moved it. It was at 7, and then you'd have to sit around and wait. You got done at 6 o'clock, you're sitting around for a whole hour waiting to start public contact. i do remember on several occasions when i was a resident you know waiting for the business of the council had been done it was set it i think at 7 30 wasn't that time certainly okay no matter what we choose somebody will be not not like it one way maybe we just leave it

[05:16:56] alone so everybody knows what what the order is as well i just think that's and that's where you're going to have these people you know they drift off if you're going to like 8 30 9 o'clock and you

[05:17:21] know so i guess for me the challenge is the unknown time at least like when you're you know

[05:17:55] you know it's at the end um but i think you know people that are are willing and passionate to me, comments, and so we just publicize that we're going to do that.

[05:18:13] We can do that. I'm sure people aren't, like, they're going to know that it's not at the end. So, you know, some people are watching online and waiting to come in or whatever. Should we try to march then just to? If it's time, yeah, we'll try. Yeah, I think that'll be good. Yeah, and I understand.

[05:18:30] We started by 30, you know, to do this. I feel even though we did already know that we had a conversation, that would be the last moment of meeting an applicant before you have.

[05:18:59] We're going with, I'm trying to make sure I understand the order, so when we do have public hearings before votes, will the public comment happen before the public hearing or after?

[05:19:17] Well, public comment would be at the beginning and advise people that if they have comments, it would still be the same process, you know, sign up and then.

[05:19:26] I'm just going to go on the record. As I said earlier, to be true, I said I'm going to be the one. I'm going to think about these things. I'm not saying yay. I'm not saying nay. I always worry about the act of unintended consequences here along the way here. I would prefer that we have some time to think about it.

[05:20:03] I just said, keeping what I said earlier, I was going to want time to think about it because I think the act of unintended consequences is always something that's got to be thought about a little bit along the way.

[05:20:26] So I'm saying I'm forward or against it, and I just would prefer to have a little bit more time to consider it alone, alone.

[05:20:45] I don't know that we have to be that formal. I already have said, I'm that one, not the 99, I'm the one.

[05:21:24] But I think, you know, I'm sorry. I'm the lost. I'm sorry, I'm torn it up. I think, I'm the lost, I'm fine. Way, I mean, you know, I think majority is do it.

[05:21:39] We have those, we have to revisit, we will, I think we're good. The next item was the city logo. I understand that when we first developed some discussion about putting a trademark on it so that there'd be, so that there was any desire for us to do it.

[05:22:19] With regards to AI, and I know I really had a lot of potential for misuse of the NOCO for classical reason or political disasters and whatever, all the things that people do to make you look bad.

[05:22:42] It might not hurt any patent that's not in social media posts, I don't know, in regard to some of the kind of items that's going on. I would like to protect the use of it, protect against the misuse of it.

[05:23:03] So what does that mean exactly? If it's a trademark, what happens if it's not used correctly? Is it a prosecution or...? I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume it sets up for us to have some legal recourse. You guys, it's different from a patent.

[05:23:23] There is a process you go through in Virginia that is good within the state, and I haven't gone through exactly that process, but it is a simpler process than the federal, which I have done before, which is very, very detail-oriented, very long process.

[05:23:45] It's my understanding we could be able to do that fairly simply process. And it does give us recourse if someone were to use it? Within the state of Virginia. So when we talk about the logo, we talk about the seal.

[05:24:05] No, the seal is already covered by state code. The city is the only city that can really use our seal. The logo, the... Yes, ma'am.

[05:24:28] We could license people. Someone came in and, I want to use your logo on T-shirts, hats, whatnot. We have the ability to license them to do that. It's just a matter of, they would have to ask us right now.

[05:24:47] I don't think it's cold and what some will have is that some people are already out before me.

[05:25:11] The idea that we're not going to be persecuted and we don't absolutely know how I feel.

[05:25:30] And now, and the other is, you know, I feel like, you know, it's the time. I'm not going to be put this to there.

[05:25:49] I don't know if we should go back to our, you know, the children for hours. But I just how I do it. the seal is supposed to only be used specific legal documents we do include it on some of the

[05:26:26] staff wardrobe to indicate so that when you're going out to home if you see the the seal of the the city on a hat or a shirt, that reinforces to the public that you are truly a representative. Whereas the logo, you sell it in the museum so that there's a greater distribution of the logo.

[05:26:49] But the seal is reserved to be primarily a primary. Your logo have their logos trademarked?

[05:27:07] My understanding that some of the bigger cities, New York, those places that have the logos, they are trademarked. So again, they have greater control of how it is.

[05:27:28] We can at least investigate and pour it back to you before we go any further how much effort it would be by the attorney's office. To get it, it's not that great an effort, and I do have the application form. As far as enforcement and the time it would take, it is to your point of ensuring that it's not abused.

[05:27:50] So it might not be policed and require staff time, but in instances where you see it, or council members see it, or staff sees it being done, then we can take action.

[05:28:06] Well, it can be biased. If you're not going to go after them, after everybody, then it's going to be biased. We're going to go after whoever's pointing out to go after. I don't want, especially today, you know, the economic crisis is just a big problem, and, you know.

[05:28:35] I would agree with Ralph. It's going out of the forms, isn't it?

[05:28:53] Amelia, so let's say I'm using it. I haven't gotten permission. It's been trademarked. I'm using it. I haven't gotten permission. The first step you would do would be send a cease and desist letter. Is that correct?

[05:29:26] Something that pins that, yes. Just to let the person know this is a trade. Well, you can see on the symbol and on the website that this is a trademark service mark registration. So it is protected under state law.

[05:29:41] and so that you know as with any legal situation that should give an indication that we can take action sometimes it's an apology I didn't know that that was the case if it becomes persistent then you would be would have the ability to pursue legal action so there is a business in the city where they have the logo on their awning and I remember seeing that kind of misleading you know

[05:30:21] it looks like it looks like the city office or something i could see where that would be a problem you know because the city doesn't really have anything to do with it but i do know that economic development you know they sent out cards for every business to put in the window you know you want to see the logo in order like i think that's okay so i i guess if it's an abuse where you feel like it's crossed the line and it's not clear what the significance of the logo would be the trademark would be helpful you're not saying every business with

[05:30:56] that card in their window is now going to have a trademark issue because the city provided it that was our production of it it's only if all of a sudden they produced it but they put some weird thing hanging out of the train or there's a a marijuana shop that smoke in Manassas says that the train is going by.

[05:31:30] Unfortunately, we've been, you know, you've seen the emails, we've been talking about marijuana. You know, the events, a lot of events will put the logo on right away because it's in the city. And some people that have had events, they did get something coming up in the city.

[05:31:50] and said no we're not we're not supporting your events it's silly but i do think you know that businesses have in their window there does have to be some guidelines i do think that's and the trademark that's i think that's how we can handle within economic development in the past yeah

[05:32:27] this but a few requests for work with Manhattan Reserve to direct minivan and members of council that would want to drive with me to go down hoping that if there's folks that want to we'll finalize the reservation for that folks that want to drive with me and if you're staying through the chamber

[05:33:07] reception that evening there's a chamber reception that evening correct yes okay well that answers my question I wasn't aware that I knew that the chamber coincided but I hadn't

[05:33:32] planned to stay for the chamber but I'm driving however if you want to carpool

[05:33:50] with me or let me carpool staying through the reception yeah wouldn't necessarily leave off tribes but if you wanted to leave your company I think

[05:34:22] that would be simpler to leave. Okay, six o'clock? Okay, thank you.

[05:35:04] Okay, even better. You're right. We're going to do a head still. We're going to wake us up and then put us to sleep.

[05:35:20] We're back with heart conditions. You know that, doesn't it? Anything that jets you up and puts you to sleep, not a good combo for the health. No. We're so quiet back there.

[05:35:38] We need to get you dressed up. You're open so you can be quiet.

[05:35:42] We're not going to get it clean now.

[05:36:43] You're wearing Mart Wolf t-shirts two years ago, three years ago. I wouldn't ask my wife to do that, unless anyone else. Yeah, no, go ahead, baby.

[05:36:59] Can I go, go, go? Are you going to the reception? Oh, right now?

[05:37:15] Well, yeah. Yeah, so now I watch.

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